reference is made to a Freeman or granting of Freedom of the City, and providing a handwritten transcript of the extract.  The extracts are complete and appear to have been taken directly from the Corporation Minute Books. Derry Extracts Book regarding Freemen (1675 - 1840) This notebook contains references to the Freemen of the City taken from the Corporation records. The extracts include the relevant volume, date, plus a short paragraph which details the granting of the Freedom of the City to various individuals. This extracts book is unfinished and incomplete. Who were the Freemen and what was their role in the Derry Corporation? The Derry Corporation, which was the chief local body governing the City's affairs, was geared towards the administration of the plantation settlement rather than the promotion of the commercial and industrial City.  The Corporation was considered a closed body, consisting of a Mayor, two sheriffs, twelve Aldermen, twenty four Burgesses and the Freemen of the City. Freemen had originally been those members of the various craft guilds in the City.  However by the mid eighteenth century the Freemen were practically semi-hereditary and it was a closely controlled group.  Freemen were often not resident in the City and rarely came from a merchant or commercial background. The Corporation was operating as an administrator of land and property as granted during the Ulster Plantation, collecting rents and engaging in legal battles with the city's London landlord, the Irish Society and any others who challenged locally established rights. The