# Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 2/Preston Guild Merchant

Part II: Pageants, Maskings, and Mummings; Preston Guild Merchant.
PRESTON GUILD MERCHANT—ITS CELEBRATION EVERY TWENTY YEARS.
One of the most ancient pageant festivals in the kingdom is held in the borough of Preston every twenty years, under the designation of the "Preston Guild Merchant." The guilds were of Anglo-Saxon origin, and Camden describes the Gilda Mercatoria as a liberty or privilege granted to merchants, whereby they were entitled to hold certain pleas of land and other possessions within their own precincts, and whereby neighbours enter into associations, and become bound to each other to bring forth him who commits any crime, or to make satisfaction to the injured party. At present, the Guild at Preston has for its object to receive and register the claims of persons having any right to the freedom or the franchises ​of the borough, whether by ancestry, prescription, or purchase, and to celebrate a periodical jubilee, rendered distinguished by the rarity of its recurrence. The first royal charter granted to Preston was in the reign of Henry II. It is without date, but held to be about 1179 or 1180. By it that king confirmed to the burgesses of Preston all the same liberties and free customs which he had granted to Newcastle-under-Lyne, the principal of which were a grant of Guild Merchant, exemption from tolls, soc, sac, &c., throughout the kingdom, &c. Dr Kuerden, in his MS. collections in the Heralds' College (vol. iv. p. 23), has preserved a paper entitled, "First Gild Merchant at Preston, second Edward III." (1328). It consists of thirteen rules or ordinances, the second of which ordains that "it shall be lawful to the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses, their heirs and successors, to set a Guild Merchant at every twenty years' end or erer (earlier), if they have need, to confirm charters, or other distres that 'long to our franchises." From an examination of the Preston Guild roll in the time of Richard II., this festival appears to have been held before the mayor, three stewards or seneschals, nine aldermen, and a clerk of the Guild. From that time till the grant of the governing charter, the entries have been in the same form; but since the reign of Charles II., with one exception (in i Anne), all the guilds have been holden before the mayor, the three senior aldermen, who are called seneschals or stewards, four other aldermen, called aldermen of the Guild, and the clerk of the Guild. The officers of the guilds seem to have exercised at some of these celebrations the whole power of legislating for the body corporate and for the burgesses. The guilds form a kind of court of session of corporate legislation, held ​every twenty years, at which all the laws for the government of the corporation are passed, and at which all the privileges of the burgesses are first claimed. Including that called by Kuerdein the first guild, there have been twenty-one guilds, and those of 1802 and 1822 were presided over by the same individual, the late Nicholas Grimshaw, Esq., who was seven times mayor of Preston, and is the only mayor who has twice, at an interval of twenty years, presided over this festival. These ceremonials and the attendant festivities attract a very large number of visitors of all classes. At that of 1822, from fifty to sixty thousand persons were present. On the first day, Monday, September 2, the companies or fraternities assembled at eight a.m., under their respective banners, and in their gayest attire. At 10.30 they were formed in order by the grand-marshal, and the mayor and corporation moved through their lines in procession to the parish church, accompanied by a large assemblage of nobility and gentry, amongst whom were the Lord-Lieutenant, and the High Sheriff of the county, the Earl of Wilton, the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, Lords Lindsay, Aylmer, Grey, &c. After divine service, the grand procession commenced, and the companies, decorated with the insignia of their trades, and headed by the bands of music, paraded the town in the following order:—1st, Tanners, skinners, curriers, and glovers; 2d, Cotton spinners and weavers, headed by their masters, and accompanied by machines in motion, mounted on stages, by which all the processes of the business were performed, from the steam-engine to the loom; 3d, cordwainers; 4th, carpenters; 5th, butchers; 6th, vintners; 7th, tailors; 8th, plasterers; 9th, smiths; 10th, gardeners; 11th, Oddfellows; 12th, printers and book-binders; 13th, Freemasons; the rear of the procession ​being brought up by the corporation and the gentry. But the great attraction of the Guild was the procession of the lady-mayoress on the following day, when about 160 ladies, headed by the representative of the lady-mayoress, supported by the mayor, and the mayor's chaplain; the Countess of Derby, supported by the Earl; the Countess of Wilton, by the Hon. Mr Stanley; Lady Lindsay, Lady Hoghton, the Misses Stanley, and numerous other ladies of distinction, all decorated with towering plumes, and dressed in the full costume of the ball-room, passed in procession from the Guildhall along the principal street to the parish church, where divine service was performed, and afterwards round the market-place to the Guildhall. These splendid processions were only the forerunners of other entertainments. For a whole fortnight the town remained full of company; banquets, plays, balls, and races, each, in their turn claimed the attention of the visitors. A fancy ball, at which from six to seven hundred of the gentry of the city were present, was given in the first week. The second week was ushered in by an ascent of Mr Livingston in his balloon, and a series of musical performances of the first order, consisting of oratorios and concerts, while a charity ball and a masquerade served to engage and delight the company during the remainder of the festival. It is erroneously supposed by some to be obligatory upon the corporation to celebrate a guild every twenty years; no such obligation exists. The guilds have, indeed, for upwards of two centuries and a half, been held at regular intervals, by virtue of a bye-law of the mayor, stewards, and aldermen of the Guild, and passed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but this is quite a matter of choice and arrangement; and should the entertainments and processions ever wholly cease, no privilege or franchise ​would be lost. The "ordinances" and "orders" may be found in Baines's Lancashire, and for the guilds of 1842 and 1862, see Dobson's History of Preston Guild.