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It is 600 years young this year, but how relevant today is the Stationers' Company? By Gareth Ward
Denzil Sharp's office is as modern as any managing director's. It is light, airy, with pastel coloured walls, modern furnishings and a large framed photograph of helicopters to recall his time in the Army Air Corps. Outside in a glass fronted cabinet is a computer server to run the office IT network. Welcome to the six-hundred- year-old Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.
Above the Clerk's office are the familiar trappings of this City of London livery company: the public rooms, the ceremonial, the names of every Master in gilt paint, the shields, flags and stained glass windows. It was in the Hall that Professor David Starkey, eminent historian told his audience a week or so ago that the Stationers' Company had managed to avoid any date of significance in its early years. Somehow you get the feeling that this is Just So.
The early years
The early years were marked by encouraging fellowship amongst its members and protecting the rights of the trade, helped by having the ability to police copyright. It was a sort of trade union meets masonic organisation.
The quasi-masonic aspect of fellowship remains, though there is no secrecy and certainly no swearing of strange oaths. There is, however, plenty of ceremonial, with Master, Wardens of various types, Liverymen and Freemen. And that is the way the Stationers want to keep it.
If they...