_Photo. Sandell, Ltd._ MERCERS’ HALL ] The patronage of the church before 1253 was in the hands of Ralph Tricket, who gave it in 1253 to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield; after the Reformation it continued in the Crown up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Olave. Houseling people in 1548 were 120. Chantries were, founded here: For Henry atte Roth, chandeler, to which Richard Scot was admitted, February 7, 1391-92; for William Love, to which Stephen Benet was collated, January 24, 1391-92. Only two monuments are recorded by Strype, neither of which commemorate persons of eminence. There was a free school, said to have been founded by Thomas à Becket, in the Old Jewry, for twenty-five scholars. There were also two almshouses for nine widows of Armourers or Braziers, the gift of Mr. Tindal, citizen and armourer of London. John Kingscote, Bishop of Carlisle, 1462, was rector here. In Ironmonger Lane is the Mercers’ Hall. THE MERCERS COMPANY The Mercers, although not incorporated until the year 1393 (17th Richard II.), were in very early times associated voluntarily for the purposes of mutual aid and comfort. They come to light as a fraternity first in the time of Henry II., for Gilbert à Becket, the father of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is said to have been a mercer; and in the year 1192, Agnes de Helles, sister of St. Thomas, and her husband, Thomas Fitztheobald de Helles, in founding the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, which is distinctly stated to have been built on the spot where the future archbishop was born, constituted the fraternity of mercers patrons of the hospital. The hospital and the Company were intimately connected until the Reformation, and afford a good example of the connection of secular guilds and ecclesiastical foundations in the Middle Ages, secular guilds being established for the promotion of trade and almsdeeds, and ecclesiastical foundations for devotion and almsdeeds. It is probable that a guild could not be carried on without the King’s licence at this early date; and it would seem a necessary interference that the mercers had a licence at the time of Henry II., from their not appearing among the “adulterine” guilds, or guilds set up without the King’s licence, which were fined in 1180 for being established without such licence.