A List of Aldermen of Cordwainers' Ward, from 1676, to the present time.

Sir R. Jefferey, knight, elected in 1676, served the office of sheriff in 1674, and that of lord-mayortin in 1686.

Sir C. Thorold, knight, elected in 1704, served the office of sheriff in 1706.

Sir G. Thorold, bart., elected in 1709, served the office of sheriff in 1711, and that of lord-mayor in 1720.

Sir W. Billers, knight, elected in 1722, served the office of sheriff in 1721, and that of lord-mayor in 1734.

Edward Ironside, esq. elected in 1745, served the office of sheriff in 1749, was chosen lord-mayor in 1753, but died in the office. W. Alexander, esq., elected in 1753, served the office of sheriff in 1751.

Sir H. Banks. knight, elected in 1762, served the office of sheriff in 1763.

George Hayley, esq. elected in 1774, served the office of sheriff in 1775.

Sir B. Turner, knt. elected in 1781; served the office of sheriff in 1783.

Sir Brook Watson, bart.; elected in 1784; served the office of sherifi in 1785; and that of lord mayor in 1796.

Christopher Smith, esq.; elected in 1807; served the office of sheriff in the same year; and that of lord-mayor in 1817; is the present alderman of this Ward.

END OF CORDWAINERS WARD.

Cornhill Ward,

DIVIDED into four precincts, is governed by an alderman, with six common councilmen, and has four constables, sixteen inquest men, and a ward beadle.

In the days of Fitz-Stephen, each of the streets of London were occupied by a distinct class of tradesmen, who carried on then a distinct trade. This assembling together of particular trades gave the names to many streets, such as Cordwainers'-street, Hosier-lane, and many still remain, as Bread-street, Milk-street, Fish-streethill, the Poultry, Leather-lane, Shoe-lane, the Vintry, Coopers'row, Budge-row, &c.

Cornhill received its name from being the site of the principal market in the city for corn. It does not appear that the factors lived here, but that stalls were erected, at which they attended on market-days. The houses were then inhabited by drapers, who were so numerous and respectable, that they were formed into a distinct guild, called " the Drapers of Cornhill." On quitting the street, the drapers were succeeded by a less respectable class of dealers, similar we may believe to those living nuisances, the Jew clothes men, who infest Holywell, Monmouth, and other streets of that class. They were not very particular in what they bought or sold, and the comparison we have made is equally borne out in this respect. Stowe says, "I have read of a countryman, who, having lost his hood, in Westminster-hall, found the same in Cornhill, hanged out to be sold, which he challenged." In all probability Stow had heard of the old ballad," the London Lyckpeny," by Dan John Lydgate, monk of Berry, given at length in

Candlewick Ward, to which we refer our readers for the rhymes at length; the stanza the historian alluded to, is,

"Then into Cornhill anon I yode,

There was much stolen gere amonge;

I saw where honge myne owne hoode,
That I had lost amonge the thronge:

To bye myne owne hoode, I thoughte it wronge,

I knew it as well as I dyd my crede,

But for lack of money could not spede."

The building of the Royal Mart or Exchange, restored Cornhill to its respectability, and it is now the principal thoroughfare of the city.

We cannot better define the limits of this Ward, than by giving Stowe's own words, as the boundaries are still the same.

This ward," beginning at the west end of Leaden-hall (street), stretching downe west, on both the sides, by the south end of Finkes (Finch) Lane, and by the north end of Birchovers (Birchin) Lane, on the left part of which lane, to wit to the middle of them, is in this Ward, and so downe to the Stocks Market, (where the Sun Fire Office stands), and this is the bounds."

There are two parish churches in this Ward, dedicated respectively to St. Michael the Archangel, and St. Peter.

The date of the foundation of St. Michael, Cornhill, is extremely remote. Alnothus, the monk, gave it to the abbot and convent, of Eovesham Reynold, the abbot, and the convent granted the same to Sparling, the priest, in all measures as he and his predecessors beforehand held it, to the which Sparling, also they granted all their lands which they there had, except certain lands held of them by Orgar le Prowde, who paid them two shillings yearly. For the which grant, the said Sparling agreed to pay one mark of rent yearly to the abbot; and find him in lodging, salt, water and fire, when he came to London, this was granted in 1132.

Amongst the registers of the churches belonging to the abbey of Evesham, is the following note: "In Londiniis ecclesia S. Mich.

de Cornhull, pertinet ad ecclesiam de Evesham, cum tribus domibus et reddit annuatim ecclesiæ duas marcas, et semel in anno ignem, salem, et literiam."-Cott. Mss.

Stowe commences his account of this church, in which his father and grandfather were buried, with a most marvellous legend, one which he evidently believed, and we give it in his own words.

"Of this steeple I have heard my father report, upon Saint James' night, certaine men, in the loft next under the bells, ringing of a peale, a tempest of lightning and thunder did arise, and an ugly shapen sight appeared to them, coming in at the south window, and lyghted on the north; for fear whereof, they all fell downe, and lay as dead for the time, letting the bells ring and cease of their own accord. When the ringers came to themselves, they found certaine stones of the north window to be razed and scrat, as if they had been so much butter printed with a lyon's claw: the same stones were fastened there againe, and so remaine till this day. I have seen them oft, and have put a leather or small stick into the holes where the claws had entered, three or four inches deepe.

"At the same time certaine maine timber posts at Queene Hith were scrat and cleft from the top to the bottom, and the pulpit cross, in St. Paul's-church-yard, was likewise scrat, cleft and overturned. One of the ringers lived in my youth, whom I have oft heard to verifie the same to be true."

This almost beats the tale of the Devil and St. Dunstan, when the latter, who amused himself in his leisure hours with the delicate and saintlike operation of making horse-shoes, being visited by his infernal highness, in disguise, having detected him by his brimstone odour or cloven foot, gripped his fiendish nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, with so much holy fervour, that his Devilship, kicking vehemently, made an impression on the stones with his cleft foot, which remains to this day, but will soon be removed, as the fiat has passed for the pulling down of that church, and thus Satan's mark will be destroyed. To return :Sir Richard Draper was a great benefactor to this parish, and the poor of this ward. His widow having afterwards married Edward Gray lord Lisle, was buried in this church by the side of

her first husband, in 1500. She was also a great benefactress to the ward, giving ninety pounds towards the renovation of the church, and her great messuage, with the appurtenances, to the parson and churchwardens for ever, on condition that they kept her anniversary, to be spent on the poor, or otherwise, to the amount of three pounds, the rest to be appropriated to the reparation of the church. The house and appurtenances, called Lady Lisle's lands, were, in the 34th of Henry VIII., leased out for sixty years at a yearly rent of £8. 133. 4d.; but the parish-, ioners not consulting their own interests, gave up this bequest as Chantry lands, and suffered the tombs of such benefactors to be demolished.

Alderman John Tolus, in 1548, gave to the rector and church-. wardens for ever, towards the repair of the church, and the relief of the poor, his tenement and appurtenances in the parish; but through the knavery or neglect of the executors, and supineness of the parishioners, the benefaction was not claimed for forty years. These lands were in Kent.

There was a chantry in this church for tho soul of Walter de Bellingham, to which Bishop Braybroke collated in 1390; and two others were founded by William Comerton and Thomas Sinith.

The old church is described as "a fair and beautiful church; but after the surrender of their lands to Edward VI. greatly blemished by the building of four tenements on the north side thereof, towards the high street, in place of a green church-yard, whereby the church was darkened and otherwise annoyed." These tenements, with the consent of the Drapers Company, the patrons, and Grindall bishop of London, were given by Richard Matthew, then rector, (11 Elizabeth,) to alderman Hawes, and other inhabitants, and their heirs for ever; the rector reserving to himself and successors the tithes, towards the support and reparation of the church and its ornaments.

On the south side of the structure was 66 a proper cloister and a faire church-yard, with a pulpit cross similar to that at St. Paul's Cathedral. In this cloister were lodgings for choristers,.