Worshipful Company of Musicians

The guild is believed to have been in existence at least as early as 1350, but the earliest official charter known was granted by King Edward IV to his minstrels in 1469.

Nevertheless, the musicians employed by the court and powerful aristocratic families resisted the new Company's authority, and in 1632 Charles I revoked the 1604 charter.

[2] By the middle of the 18th century most public music-making had moved from the city to the newly built West End of London, and the Worshipful Company had become an anachronism.

A modest number of musicians were admitted to membership, and the non-musicians in the Company agreed to an increasing emphasis on musical philanthropy as its primary activity.

[2] Despite the lack of an official charter since 1632, the Company held tercentenary celebrations at the beginning of the twentieth century, under the direction of Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier commandant of the Royal Military School of Music.