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Rex Williams ,Liveryman 1948, Memories
Mr Rex Williams writes:
My first introduction to the Worshipful Company was in January, 1941, when I was bought before a meeting of the Court to become apprenticed to the then Master Geoffrey Glazier. My father, Glen Williams, had joined the Company the previous year, and had been appointed Clerk in succession to his lifelong friend Brian Wood. The ceremony was brief, and was followed by luncheon, at which I was allowed my first sherry!
Geoffrey Glazier and his family lived quite close to us in Sanderstead, and John Glazier and his younger brother, Timothy, had attended the same prep school as I did until the 1939 war started, when we went to different schools following evacuation. I remember Mrs Glazier kindly driving us to school on inclement mornings!
Not long after, my uncle Harold Williams also became a liveryman of the Bowyers, and during the 1960s, both he and my father served on the Court and as Masters.
My own contact with the Company was renewed at the beginning of 1948, when my due term of apprenticeship was complete, and I was sworn in as a Freeman, and soon after as a Liveryman.
In the spring of 1948 brought another contact with the Glazier Family , when Geoffrey Glazier's brother, Maxwell was the surgeon who removed my appendix!
At that period, it had become customary for the Bowyers to invite as guests of honour at Livery Dinners some prominent military leaders in the 1939-45 war. I remember Marshal of the RAF, Lord Tedder as one of the guests, and my father told me of an earlier occasion when Field Marshall Lord Wavell was there.
Lord Wavell's speech included references to poetry, including the Agincourt Song. "Our King went forth to Normandy, with Powers and might of Chivalry", and also Conan Doyle's "Song of the Bow" from his novel the White Company" of which the first verse runs:
What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English Bows.
And men who are free
Love the Old Yew tree
And the land where the Yew Tree grows
Wavell suggested that these songs be sung at major Bowyer occasions, and I do remember livery dinners where this was done. I don't know if the custom has survived.
My close involvement with the Company rather faded in 1954 when the publishing company I then worked for decided to transfer me to their Canadian office in Toronto, where I have lived ever since. However I have been able to attend a few gatherings, including the Election of the Sheriffs in the 1960s, and I still have the order of Service for the Guilds service in St Paul's in 1987.
Otherwise my contacts have been through Richard Wood, Brian Wood's son, and my cousin, Richard Williams, who served as Warden and would likely to have been Master but for his early death. More recently, I have kept up correspondence with Christopher Ballenden, for whose insights on the current activities of the Bowyers Company I am most grateful.
In a different way, it has been possible to maintain some contact with the traditions of the City. In 1979, a group of us, led by Ray Gibson of the Guild of Air pilots and John Storey of the Company of Master Mariners, formed a Company, soon to be recognised by the City of London as the Honourable Company of Freemen of the City of London in North America. In addition to a formal dinner and meeting each spring, there are less formal assemblies through the year, for golfers and so on, and a number of seats at a Toronto version of the Last Night of the Proms. I was fortunate to be elected Master in 1986. We have had the privilege of the presence of some Lords Mayor at dinners and other prominent officers. Outside Toronto, the Dinners have been held in Montreal, New York, and Philadelphia.
