This Company was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, 1582, for a master, 2 wardens, 19 assistants, and a livery of 124. The present livery is 130; their Corporate Income is £700; their Trust Income is £2300. Their hall is in Little Trinity Lane. The history of the Company has been written by Mr. John Gregory Grace, late master. It was an ancient Gild, but how ancient cannot be learned. In the fifteenth century the Painters sent unto the mayor and aldermen the usual petition that they might be allowed to choose two persons of their Mystery who should be authorised to make search for bad and “false” work. This Company originally included painters of portraits and other kinds, as well as decorators, sign painters, etc. It might, in fact, have become the City Academy of Arts, and it seems a great pity that its nobler side was lost sight of. The hall, formerly the residence of Sir John Brown, Sergeant Painter to Henry VIII., was destroyed by the Great Fire and rebuilt immediately afterwards. The Company can show many distinguished names on the roll of members, including those of Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Antonio Verrio, Sir James Thornhill, and Richard Lovelace. =Holy Trinity the Less= was situated in Knightrider Street. In 1607 and 1629 it was rebuilt and repaired, but it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and its parish annexed to that of St. Michael, Queenhithe. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323. The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Prior and Convent of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, before 1316; Henry VIII. seized it, when it soon came, either by exchange or grant, to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, with whose successors it continued till 1666, when the church was destroyed and the parish annexed to St. Michael, Queenhithe. Houseling people in 1548 were 170. Chantries were founded here by: Thomas Cosyn; John Bryan. John Bryan was buried in this church—he was an alderman in the reign of Henry V. and a great benefactor; also John Mirsin, auditor of the Exchequer in 1471. No legacies or gifts are recorded by Stow. There was a school for forty-three boys and girls belonging to St. Michael, Queenhithe. John Rogers, who was burnt as a heretic at Smithfield in 1555, was a rector here; also Francis Dee (d. 1638), Bishop of Peterborough. =Great Trinity Lane=, together with Great St. Thomas Apostle and the west half of Cloak Lane, formerly counted as part of Knightrider Street, which joins the western end of Great Trinity Lane. It was changed to the present style after the Fire. In 1888 the underground “Mansion House” station ousted all the houses on the south side of the lane; but Jack’s Alley was a right-of-way into Keen’s mustard factory—its loss had to be made good, and hence the iron bridge which crosses the station from the lane to the factory: really it is an alley suspended in mid-air.