The Kings Tentmaker

The following is an extract from the local newspaper report on the York Merchant Taylors’ Charter Day, held on June 24, 1930. 

Following the Annual Service at All Saints Church, Pavement, the Master presided at the ‘after-proceedings’ at the Merchant Taylors Hall. 

Replying to the toast to the Chaplain, Mr A R Gill “explained to the company the history of the Company’s coat of Arms which had been worked out by Mr T P Cooper” as follows: Mr Cooper was a notable early 20th-century York historian. 

“The tent on the shield depicted in the window was fascinating, as the original tent-maker to the King was intimately associated with the city of York”.  

This man, John Yackersley, bought for himself the site of the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London in 1331. He was described as tent-maker or pavilioner to Edward II and Edward III, and he gave that site, or original premises, to the fellowship or guild of the Merchant Taylors of London, who placed on their shield a tent to commemorate this early benefactor. They did not have a coat of arms in the Provinces; they somehow or other commandeered the crest of the Merchant Taylors’ Company of London. The two strange looking things on the side of the tent were Parliamentary robes.” 

“In 1317, Yackersley and his assistants were in York Castle repairing tents and making new ones for the Royal army for the projected campaign against the Scots. These men spent some years in York, and for his services, the mayor and his brethren made Yackersley a citizen of York in 1332. Afterwards, he was pavilioner to Edward III, who was married in York Minster, and in April 1333, Yackersley was again in the Castle of York on the king’s business.  

On this occasion, the mayor and his bailiffs commandeered as many tailors and craftsmen as Yackersley required to proceed immediately to the castle ‘to do divers arduous tasks as he could order them to do on the King’s behalf.’ In 1586, a new coat of arms was granted to the Merchant Taylors Co.”