“Bright Lights, Open Minds, Robust Community”
This month we, the Trustees of Gresham College, hosted the Lord Mayor’s Gresham Event at Guildhall (he or she is our President!) … http://www.gresham.ac.uk/london-the-global-maritime-centre-in-a-changing-world
London – The Global Maritime Centre in a Changing World
During the week of the Lord Mayor’s Show it was our turn to host the Hamburger Morgensprache back in London. We were delighted to be able to host them at two events. The first event was a Freedom Ceremony on Friday, 13 November:
Hamburger Morgensprache party with Murray Craig (far left)
As ever, Murray Craig, Clerk of the Chamberlain’s Court, City of London, provided one of his delightfully witty, historical, and theatrical presentations, with a traditional round of Madeira to toast the “Youngest Freemen”. Perhaps the most touching thing the City of London did was to dig out from the archives this parchment from 1342!
A writ under King Edward II’s Privy Seal bidding the Mayor, Aldermen & Commonalty to allow the merchants of Almaine to enjoy their ancient franchise to sell wine and other merchandise was read in the Mayor’s Court on 13 November 1342.
The following morning of the show, 14 November, the Worshipful Company of World Traders hosted the team for a breakfast at the Capital Club, before everyone headed off to join their floats, have a wonderful Show, and get drenched!
The Ältermänner of Hamburg in the Lord Mayor’s Show
“Handelskammer Hamburg” is the Chamber of Commerce for Hamburg – https://www.hk24.de/. Unlike British or American chambers, German Handelskammers have statutory powers and levy charges on businesses. Their compulsory status also encourages leading businesspeople to participate more earnestly in commerce and trade policy issues. Starting with an initiative by Lord Mayor Michael Savory and Kenneth Stern, and picked up by Aldermen Alison Gowman, and Jeffrey Evans, they provide a float in the Lord Mayors’ Show every other year. Equally, each year two Aldermen go to Hamburg representing the City at the Handelskammer’s big annual celebration in October, the Morgensprache. 2015 would have been an ‘away’ year for the Hamburgers, but in honour of Lord Mountevans’ Mayoralty they made a special trip this year to be in the show.
One of the most delightful trips we’ve made recently was when Elisabeth and I had a quasi-diplomatic mission to Hamburg, accompanying Alderman Alison Gowman and Murray Craig, Clerk of the Chamberlain’s Court, City of London, where we too became part of this initiative. The purpose of the mission was to deepen links with Hamburg for the benefit of both, a celebration of trade.
The Hanseatic links between London and various North Sea and Baltic ports are crucial in understanding history and where we are today, yet they get mistier. Few remember that the Hanseatic League maintained a Kontor (a medieval free trade zone) called the ‘Stalhof’ or ‘Steelyard‘ in the heart of London from 1266 till the merchants were thrown out in 1598 by Queen Elizabeth I. Though they returned, the Hanseatic League had certainly ceased trading by 1758. That said, Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg only sold their common property, the London Steelyard, to the South Eastern Railway in 1852. Cannon Street station was built on the site and opened in 1866.
This link to the Hanse event and transcripts might interest – http://www.gresham.ac.uk/london-forgotten-hanseatic-city. My particular interest is here – http://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/14jun07michaelmainelli_hanseanditsinfluence.doc
Our hosts were Handelskammer Hamburg (Hamburg Chamber of Commerce). Hamburg welcomed us most warmly. We learned a lot as well, particularly about the role of compulsory Chambers of Commerce and how that probably makes German apprenticeships far more successful than the British sort. They are full of pride about their City and their achievements, reminding me of a wonderful quote – “Bürgermeister Johann Heinrich Burchard (1852-1912) bemerkte zu der Nachricht, seine Majestät geruhe, Rudolph Schröder (1852–1938) in den Adelsstand zu erheben, Majestät könne ihn zwar in den Adelsstand ‘versetzen’, in ihn ‘erheben’ könne sie einen hanseatischen Kaufmann jedoch nicht.”
“Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard (1852-1912) reacted to the news that it would please his Majesty to deign to raise Rudolph Schroeder (1852-1938) to the nobility by noting that his Majesty could indeed ‘place’ him in the peerage , however as a Hanseatic merchant he could never be ‘elevated’.”
[Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: “Adel und Bürgertum in Hamburg. In: Hamburgisches Geschlechterbuch”. 14, 1997, S. 21–32.]
Our visit was well-covered and it is difficult to think of a more generous group of hosts than the ones we had. We toasted each other merrily with their traditional “Cheese and Bread”, an ancient London shibboleth for the German-speaking community during the days of the Kontor in London at the Stalhof. THE HANSEATIC STEELYARD IN DOWGATE, by Alderman Alison Gowman in Mansion House on18 October 2013.
Perhaps not a speech full of content, but certainly full of warm feelings, I reproduce the text of my speech followed by an English translation:
Morgensprache – Deutsche
15 October 2015, Handelskammer Hamburg
Ältermann, sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen aus London,
Ich darf Sie herzlich von Alan Yarrow, The Rt Hon Lord Mayor of London, und seinen Sheriffs sowie dem Rat der Aldermen und Councilmen grüssen. Wir möchten von London nach Hamburg dem anhaltenden Erfolg Ihrer Morgensprache gratulieren.
Als Professor für Handel liebe ich eine Stadt, die den Handel feiert. Unsere beiden Städte sind sehr unabhängig. Die Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg ist ein stolzer Stadtstaat seit dem 9. Jahrhundert. Die City of London ist die älteste kontinuierliche Demokratie in der Welt. Unsere beiden Städte sind im Handel über die Jahrhunderte verbunden. Am 8. November 1266 wurde ein Vertrag zwischen Hamburger Kaufleuten und Henry III von England geschlossen um eine Hanse in London zu etablieren – das erste Mal in der Geschichte wurde dieser Begriff für die Liga eingesetzt.
Unsere deutschen Verbindungen sind stark. Meine Frau kommt aus Franken. Meine Großmutter war Deutsche. Aber ich habe nie eine formelle Rede in Deutsch gegeben, so dass ich fast, wie in Franken, mit ‘Grüß Gott’ begann. Wir besuchen oft Freunde in Ihrer altehrwürdigen und lebendigen Stadt. Ich nahm jedes Jahr während den 2000er Jahren an der Kieler Woche teil. Meine Frau und ich sind in der Schifffahrt mit einem kommerziellen, und auch altehrwürdigen, Segelboot tätig und gehören der Gilde der Worshipful Company of Watermen & Lightermen an. Aber wir haben nie mit dieser Ehre gerechnet, heute zu Ihnen sprechen zu dürfen. Vielen Dank.
Unsere beiden Städte haben viel gemein – Schifffahrt, Technologie, Finanzen, Kunst, Medien und Verlagswesen – aber das Wichtigste, was unsere Städte vereint, ist die ähnliche Denkweise.
Eines Tages fragte eine Lehrerin, Frau Müller, ihren Schüler Johnny, „Johnny, wenn zwei Vögel auf einer Leitung sitzen, und ich feuere zwei Schüsse aus einer Schrotflinte, wie viele Vögel werde ich treffen?“ „Einen, Frau Müller.“ „Johnny, hör mir genau zu, wenn zwei Vögel auf einer Leitung sitzen, und ich feuere zwei Schüsse aus einer Schrotflinte, wie viele Vögel werde ich treffen?“ „Einen, Frau Müller“. „Warum, Johnny?“ „Frau Müller, nach dem ersten Schuss fliegt der zweite Vogel weg.“ „Johnny, das ist die falsche Antwort, aber mir gefällt, wie du denkst.“
Am nächsten Tag kommt Johnny ins Klassenzimmer. „Frau Müller, mein Vater sagt, daß ich mein Taschengeld sparen soll. Ich habe eine Wahl: Eine Bank bietet mir eine pädagogische Broschüre. Die andere Bank hat eine sehr hübsche Kassiererin. Welche Bank soll mein Konto bekommen?“ Die Lehrerin lacht, und sagt: „Nun, vielleicht diejenige mit der sehr hübschen Kassiererin. Johnny erwidert: „Nein Frau Müller, die mit der größten Staatsgarantie, aber mir gefällt wie Sie denken!“
Freiheit und Handel sind eng verwandt. Ohne Freiheit gibt es keinen fairen Handel. Die Sicherheit, dass uns der Handel liefert, was wir zum Leben brauchen, gibt uns das Vertrauen in die Zukunft, ohne dass wir von der Angst um das Überleben gelähmt sind. Die Freiheit, im Handel zu konkurrieren hält uns innovativ und relevant. Wie Friedrich Hayek schon fest stellte, die Freiheit ist nicht das Gegenteil von Zwang, sondern Freiheit ist Ordnung durch das Gesetz. Wir sind heute hier, um unsere gemeinsamen Hanse Traditionen zu feiern – Verbindung von Freiheit und Handel.
Das Wesen der Freiheit und des Handels verändert sich rasant. Wer hätte vor zwei Jahrzehnten gedacht, dass wir die Inhalte unserer Dachböden und Keller bei eBay handeln? Wer hätte die Explosion der billigen Flüge voraussehen können? Und es werden noch viel mehr Veränderungen kommen – der anhaltende Aufstieg Asiens von Japan über Korea, nach China und jetzt in Indien, die Öffnung des Iran, die Europäische Flüchtlingskrise, der Klimawandel, und wir blicken im Jahr 2050 auf Handel zwischen 10 Milliarden Menschen und Billionen von automatisierten Maschinen.
Während all dieser Veränderungen müssen unsere beiden Städte gemeinsam die Bedeutung der Freiheit und des Handels fördern. Wir haben eine moralische Verpflichtung, freie und wettbewerbsorientierte Märkte zu verteidigen. Die Gesellschaft hat viele Möglichkeiten zur Lösung von Krisen. Viele dieser Lösungen sind weder hübsch noch progressiv, sondern der Weg zur Leibeigenschaft. Der positive und direkte Weg, um Menschen in die globale Gemeinschaft zu bringen ist es, sie in die Welthandelsgemeinschaft einzubinden. Guter Handel macht gute Kameraden. Unsere Feier heute Abend ist ein freudiger Anlass, der als Erinnerung daran dienen soll, dass die Freiheit des Handels unsere Städte lebenswert macht.
Ich möchte mit einem Zitat aus der Antrittsrede von US-Präsident Thomas Jefferson schliessen – „Handel und ehrliche Freundschaft für alle”. Das Zitat ist das Motto meiner Gilde, der Worshipful Company of World Traders. Dieses Zitat verbindet unsere beiden Städte London und Hamburg. Darf ich Sie bitten, auf zu stehen, und einen Toast mit mir auf die Gesundheit der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg zu trinken, „Handel und ehrliche Freundschaft für alle.”
“Freiheit des Geistes, der Chancen und des Handels”.
Morgensprache – English
15 October 2015, Handelskammer Hamburg
We from London wish to congratulate Hamburg on the continuing success of your Morgensprache celebrations. As a Professor of Commerce, I love a city that celebrates trade. Our two cities are fiercely independent. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg has been a proud city-state since the 9th century. The City of London is the oldest continuous democracy in the world. Our two cities are united in trade over the centuries. On 8 November 1266 a contract between Hamburg’s traders and Henry III of England establish a hanse in London – the first time in history the term was used for the League.
Our German connections are strong. My wife comes from Franken. My grandmother was German. But I’ve never given a formal speech, so I almost began, as they do in Franken, with ‘Gruss Gott’. We visit friends often in your ancient and vibrant city. I raced sailboats at Kieler Woche every year during the 2000s. My wife and I are in shipping with a commercial sailing boat and belong to the Worshipful Company of Watermen & Lightermen. But we never expected the honour of being asked to address you today. Thank you.
Our two cities are united in so much commerce – shipping, technology, finance, arts, media and publishing – but the most important thing that unites our cities is similar ways of thinking.
One day a teacher asks her student Johnny, ‘Johnny, if there are two birds on a wire and I fire two barrels from a shotgun, how many birds will I hit?’. ‘One, Miss’. ‘Johnny, please listen, if there are two birds on a wire and I fire two barrels from a shotgun, how many birds will I hit?’. ‘One, Miss’. ‘Why Johnny?’. ‘Well Miss, after you fire the first barrel the second bird will fly away.’ ‘Johnny, that’s the wrong answer, but I like the way you think.’
The next day Johnny comes into the classroom. ‘Miss, my Dad says that I must save my allowance. One bank offers me an educational booklet. The other bank has a very pretty teller. Which bank should get my account?’ The teacher blushes, and says ‘Well, perhaps the one with the very pretty teller.’ Johnny replies, ‘No Miss, the one with the biggest government guarantee, but I like the way you think!’.
Freedom and trade are strongly related. Without freedom there is no fair trade. The certainty and confidence that trade can deliver what we need to live gives us the confidence to think to the future, not paralysed by fear of surviving the present. The freedom to compete in trade keeps us innovative and relevant. Yet Friedrich Hayek notes that freedom is not the opposite of constraint, rather, “freedom is order through law”. We are here today to celebrate our mutual Hanseatic connections – bindings of freedom and trade.
The nature of freedom and trade is changing rapidly. Who would have thought two decades ago that we would be trading the contents of our attics and basements on eBay? Who could have foreseen the explosion of cheap air flights? And there is much more change to come – the continuing rise of Asia moving from Japan to Korea to China and now to India, the opening of Iran, the European refugee crisis, climate change, looking to commerce and trade in 2050 among 10 billion people trading with trillions of automated machines.
Throughout all of these changes, our two cities must mutually promote the importance of freedom and trade. We have a moral obligation to defend free and competitive markets. Society has many ways of resolving crises. Many of society’s ways of dealing with problems are neither pretty nor progressive, the roads to serfdom. The most positive and direct way to bring people into the global community is to bind people into the global trading community. Good trade makes good fellows. Our celebration tonight is clearly fun, but hopefully it provides a small reminder that freedom to trade makes our cities worth living in.
I would end with a quote from US President Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural speech of 1801 – “with commerce and honest friendship for all”. The quote is the motto of my Worshipful Company of World Traders. This quote unites our two cities of London and Hamburg. May I ask all of you to be upstanding and drink a toast with me to the health of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, “with commerce and honest friendship for all.”
Here is a nice story about the ancient Barts Pathology lab helping advance modern medical science a teensy bit over the tragic Kawasaki disease:
“Gee’s post-mortem examination findings, preserved in a single paragraph written in 1871, recorded signs of damage called aneurysms in the coronary arteries running across the surface of the boy’s heart.”
For me, this museum story began in 2006. Professor Will Ayliffe and I were aghast at the state of deliberate neglect when we made an ‘illegal’ tour of the then abandoned facility. I was on a board of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) where the Clinical Pathology Association (CPA) was a subsidiary. The CPA had a Trust to which we applied for cataloguing, and the CPA Trust funding came through in 2009/2010 with Dr Ken Scott’s support (the CEO of CPA). Colleague Professor Adrian Newland lent his support, thus drawing in Barts Trust support.
The publication by Carla Connolly of her preservation work – http://www.ibms.org/includes/act_download.php?download=pdf/2012-March-St-Barts.pdf – along with this Gresham College lecture by Will – http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/anatomy-museums-past-present-and-future – (supported by Gresham Professors Tim Connell and Frank Cox), and City of London support through Wendy Mead kept up the visibility, leading to the permanent museum arrangements with Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) – http://www.smd.qmul.ac.uk/about/pathologymuseum/
And it turned out the historic collection was useful, perhaps invaluable, as long suspected by Will and me. Sadly (for those with this rare disease and their families), yet hopefully (medically and scientifically), perhaps more value will be derived in future on Kawasaki and other diseases. I think it is a great story, or backstory, for all of us in the City, Gresham College, and the scientific profession.
[Coda: during the covid-19 pandemic we have also seen Kawasaki disease feature, so the origins are important –
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31129-6/fulltext
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/a-pretty-scary-thing-rare-child-syndrome-tied-to-virus-worries-new-york-100-sick/2413952/]
In these days of continuous assessment, how do you know where you stand? For folks in the City you could do worse than look into the Liber Albus 2015 (White Book 2015). So what am I to make of this contribution to the book?
A bit frightening that I appear to be increasing the City of London Corporation’s repair bills. Perhaps I’ll fare better in next year’s annual review.
To order a copy – CITY WHITE BOOK 2015 – ORDER FORM
What a most interesting talk to give. My dear friend, Robin Sherlock KCLJ MA, former Chief Commoner of the City of London Corporation, asked me to speak at the Ladies’ Dinner of The Dulwich Club where he has been Senior Steward the past year. The Club, founded in 1772, is one of the oldest dining societies in the world. Elisabeth and I found the entire evening a delight. Haberdashers’ Hall was rebuilt after the fire of 1666 and the bombing of WWII, yet the Company made a brave decision to open one of the most tasteful modern halls in 2002, a true architectural gem opposite St Barthomew’s.
Giving a talk to The Dulwich Club was no easy task, as they’ve heard them all before. I was a bit trepidatious, particularly as the Junior Steward, Bruce Purgavie made clear my ignorance of football yet expected me to show some rocket science skills the night after Guy Fawkes. What can one say? Well, this was it:
Sir Thomas Gresham: Tudor, Trader, Shipper, Spy
The Dulwich Club – Ladies Night Dinner
Haberdashers’ Hall
Thursday, 6 November 2014
“Senior Steward, Junior Steward, my Lords, distinguished Guests, Ladies. When Robin suggested that I have a dinner with the Ladies of London’s most exclusive dining society, I was particularly pleased. When he suggested I bring along my Lady Elisabeth, while delighted of course, I began to realise it wasn’t my looks – I would be lecturing for my dinner on behalf of the Visitors.
Robin suggested I do a serious talk, after all the jokes, about being a newish Alderman, so I naturally thought of ward disputes, governance, compliance, and endless committee meetings to share with you. Robin wondered if perhaps there was something slightly more interesting, so let me share with you one fun project of the Joint Grand Gresham Committee – a biography on Sir Thomas Gresham: Tudor, Trader, Shipper, Spy, born 1519, died 1579.
When I was a boy two-door was what you bought when you couldn’t afford four-door, but Gresham served four Tudor monarchs, managed to keep his head, and all the while made money. Lots of it. He probably died comparatively wealthier than Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. 435 years later his legacy still generates millions for good causes. We have Gresham Street. We have his statue a few hundred yards away on Holborn viaduct, another at the Royal Exchange. We have his Tower 42 Mansion site, Osterley Park, Boston Manor. His grave at St Helen’s Bishopsgate. We have grasshoppers everywhere – on the top of the Royal Exchange, at 68 Lombard Street, on stained glass windows.
Gresham was born on Cheapside and attended St Paul’s School and Gonville College, Cambridge. In 1543 he went to Antwerp to make his fortune as a Mercer. Antwerp then was very cosmopolitan and large for the time, with a population approaching 100,000, double London or Rome. Just 25 merchants accounted for half of London’s cloth exports, and the two biggest exporters were the brothers John Gresham and Richard Gresham, Thomas’s father.
Gresham imported from Antwerp the idea of a ‘bourse’ or ‘exchange’ for intangible items such as ship voyages and insurance. Incorporated into the 1571 Royal Exchange were 150 small shops, called The Pawn, London’s first shopping centre. From within St Martin’s Goldsmiths he experimented with fractional reserve gold stores, cornering markets, and insider trading. His Will, enacted upon his death in 1579, created Gresham College and challenged the ‘Oxbridge’ oligopoly in higher education.
We are commissioning a biography which we hope to publish on the quincentenary of his birth, 2019. But what does a Tudor have to say about contemporary issues? I thought I’d ‘channel’ Gresham on three questions today:
1 – what should we do about our banks?
2 – what should we do about our currency?
3 – what should we do about Europe?
1 – What Should We Do About Our Banks?
Gresham was probably one of the first goldsmiths to issue more certificates for gold in the vaults than he had. Our modern economic terms are fractional reserve banking or leveraged banking. So rather than letting banks such as RBS in 2008 lend 42 times what they had in the vaults, Gresham would probably recommend tight control over leverage. He might have recommended that our quantitative easing continue to the point that our banks were lending little more than they have in their vaults.
2 – What Should We Do About Our Currency?
Gresham explained to Elizabeth I that because Henry VIII and Edward VI had replaced 40% of the silver in shillings with base metal, ‘all your fyne gold was conveyed out of this your realm.’ Colloquially expressed as “bad money drives out good”, Gresham’s Law was attributed to him in 1858 by a Scottish economist. Two awkward bits – the Law is the reverse, “good money drives out bad”, and Gresham’s Law was not his; it was noted much much earlier by many, starting with Aristophanes. The Nobel economist Robert Mundell rephrased Gresham’s Law more properly as “cheap money drives out dear money only if they must be exchanged for the same price”.
In 1551 Edward VI appointed Thomas as Royal Agent in Antwerp. A clever and shrewd dealer, Gresham reduced royal indebtedness from £325,000 to £108,000. He reduced the national debt by two-thirds in nine months. Under so-called ‘austerity’, UK national debt has grown over the past four years by a third. William Cecil put Gresham in charge of recoinage in 1560. To his, Elizabeth’s, and Cecil’s credit, within a year debased money was withdrawn, melted, and replaced, with a profit to the Crown estimated at £50,000.
Gresham stood for an independent pound sterling. He certainly wouldn’t have sold off the national gold reserve. More interestingly, he might also have supported an independent London currency.
3 – What Should We Do About Europe?
A Gresham ship from 1570 was re-discovered in the Thames in 2003; its cannons inscribed with grasshoppers and marked ‘TG’. There are tales of bullion concealed in bales of pepper or armour. Gresham was clearly a “merchant adventurer” with a network of European agents, though the sobriquet ‘arms-dealer’ might equally apply.
The Royal Exchange began as his father’s idea, but the idea behind the exchange and the shops was that London prospers when all who come for exchange are treated fairly.
Gresham was a free trader and Europhile, yet also a realist and a spy, committed to engaging with Europe, vigorously, but for mutual and selfish benefit.
Hop To It
I must end on grasshoppers, in two ways – the family symbol and Kung Fu. The Gresham grasshopper first appears in the mid-1400’s. According to family legend, the founder of the family, Roger de Gresham, was abandoned as a baby in long grass in North Norfolk in the 13th century. A woman’s attention was drawn to the foundling by a grasshopper. While a beautiful story, a more likely explanation is that the Middle English word ‘gressop’ for ‘grasshopper’ resembles ‘Gresham’. I think the Royal Exchange may have taken the theme too far – if you look on the south side just now it reads, “luxury shopping”, but the “s” has temporarily fallen off. Luxury hopping?
And Kung Fu? Well grasshoppers, you’ll remember David Carradine and the 1970 television series – ‘grasshoppers’ are students. Gresham believed in the power of education for all. His Tudor Open University spawned ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge’ after a 1660 lecture by Sir Christopher Wren, then Professor of Astronomy. Today Gresham College hosts over 130 physical events per year free to the public, distributes recordings under a Creative Commons licence, and provides millions of people with lecture transcripts and recordings via the internet.
A century after Gresham’s death Samuel Pepys enjoyed Gresham’s legacies, listening to one of the professors ‘sufficiently learned to reade the lectures’, then strolling through the Royal Exchange afterwards in search of a gift for a loved one, as can you today well over three centuries later. We’re pleased to be setting out on the first proper biography and I hope you feel he is a worthy subject. What I might ask you to do is look around the City and wonder at how we ourselves could leave a comparable legacy for the next half a millennium. We, your grateful guests, know the Dulwich Club will be full of enthusiastic ideas. Thank you!”
And for even more…
Michael Mainelli and Valerie Shrimplin, “Sir Thomas Gresham: Tudor, Trader, Shipper, Spy”, London Topographical Society Newsletter, Number 79 (November 2014), pages 3-6.
Today was one of the most delightful days for me. The Furniture Makers made me, as their Alderman, an Honorary Liveryman. It was a lovely ceremony done both in good taste and a speed just below haste and well above boring. You can see the beaming faces of all the liverymen below.
The Furniture Makers are a more recent livery, though they achieved their Royal Charter last year after 50 years as a livery – http://www.furnituremkrs.co.uk/. What makes them exciting is a wonderful combination of being an active trade, full of people with imagination and good taste. For example, at their Royal Charter and 50th anniversary dinner they had goldfish (gold = 50th) in large martini-shaped glass bowls on the table. The goldfish in front and above me seemed to perk up every time the photographer came by – “here’s my best side” – and went back to lazy swimming the moment he left. The Furniture Makers took care that the goldfish were comfortable and went to good homes immediately afterwards. Despite my earnest attempts at woodcarving, e.g.:
they seem to like people who can shake hands without too many plasters, so I suspect they’ll been looking inward for the real talent. I do hope to do many good things with them over the years to come and thank them for placing such confidence in my membership.
The City of London is a fascinating study of two millennia of urban development. I finished my first year on the Planning & Transportation Committee this month. Inthe 1970’s I spent quite a bit of time working at the Harvard Graduate School of Design at Gund Hall, Harvard’s school of architecture. My research job was providing architects with some of their first CAD-CAM 3D walk-throughs; today we’d call it computer generated imagery (CGI). The architects used these very expensive, match-stick walk-throughs in competitions ‘selling’ architectural dreams. So I should be an excellent ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’, no? Also, like many, I’ve complained about much of the post-war architectural blight, the brutal brutalism, the feckless facades. And of course, as a central London resident I’d like to improve the night view from my balconies:
Well, it’s harder than one thinks. The planning applications are lengthy and complicated – these days there is a lot of CGI to look at. Committee Members only get sent the small percentage of very tough applications, i.e. the political ones. We rely on an excellent and committed Chairman who treats this unpaid post as a full-time job.
We’re cutting down on skyscrapers and hotels, but people’s complaints about them won’t cease for a few years till the planned ones are built. Neighbours and financiers row with each other. People complain, but then don’t bother to attend Committee meetings (meetings are open to the general public and can be fascinating to observe). Central government plays politics with us over Smithfield Market, itself a very difficult decision. St Bart’s Hospital and Maggie’s Centre for cancer lead to huge divisions of opinion. Yes, very interesting times in a single year.
And my favourite, though tough, decision in my first year? Probably 40 Leadenhall, which I have privately nicknamed “The Shuffle” because it looks to me like a deck of cards. I do hope when built it looks as good as the CGI and does provide a unique blend of traditional architecture and modern, with innovative internal open spaces. I really do. That’s the tough bit of planning, the need for hope – we’ll get it right this time…
It would be difficult to cram in any more events between the parties. Not only have we had the Z/Yen Christmas Party, my 27th annual boozy breakfast on Lady Daphne (beer courtesy of Fuller’s!), the annual Broad Street Ward Club luncheon, carol services at St Margaret Lothbury, and numerous other events, but work has been frenzied too. Try some of these fascinating links for some variety, not even the half of it:
Then some amazing Financial Times coverage of a project we cooked up with Bob McDowall of Alderney over the summer:
but perhaps most noteworthy for me was the honour of presenting at this University of Sussex workshop for Onora O’Neill – http://www.sussex.ac.uk/philosophy/newsandevents/actingonprinciple – terrifying to be a business person presenting to philosophers, but Onora made it rewarding. And that’s just bits of December, though a nice, closing for the year before heading away to Germany for Wolpertinger habitat preservation work – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolpertinger. So I’ll leave a stressful 2013 behind with the following picture of peace and The Shard in fog after a few beers on a cold morning at St Katharine’s Dock. Prost Neujahr 2014.
One of the more unusual things I’ve had to do lately was acquire a top hat for Remembrance Sunday services at St Paul’s and the Royal Exchange. For those who know of our family’s associations with Wilton’s Music Hall, including organising a wonderful Gilbert & Sullivan sing-along led by Professor Robin Wilson for the Gresham Society – http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/a-%E2%80%9Csing-in%E2%80%9D-with-gilbert-and-sullivan, as well as our associations with the not-quite-‘toff’, George Leybourne, then the contrast with my aversion to formal wear – http://www.mainelli.org/?p=308 – makes exquisite irony. For those who would like to explore the background to Wilton’s, Champagne Charlie, and some of the first commercial sponsorships:
For those who would like to be entertained by some visuals at Wilton’s today, I can only provide the following:
