About Us

The Worshipful Company of Scriveners is forty-fourth in order of precedence of the 111 Livery Companies of the City of London. Its formal establishment as a corporate body governed by ordinances granted by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London dates from 26 September 1373.

The medieval regulations and ordinances for the governance of the Scriveners' Company were to ensure integrity in business, competence in practice of those engaged in the craft and charitable support of members (or dependents of members) who experienced financial, or other, difficulties. Notaries appear as members of the Company from 1392 onwards, when it issued new ordinances to coincide with the appointment of laymen as papal and imperial notaries by the Archbishop of Canterbury as Papal Legate.

We have admitted women to the Company since at least 1665 when Elizabeth Billingsley was apprenticed to James Windus who became Master in 1669. Windus also apprenticed Lucy Sanderson and Margaret Alsop in 1677, and Sarah Dutton was admitted by patrimony in 1675. We now welcome applications for membership from all who are interested, whether professionally or during their leisure, in the law, the church, history, calligraphy, illumination and heraldry.