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The mural before us was painted by artist, Tony Raymond, in 2000. This image celebrates the Company’s participation in the City’s long history of waterborne pageantry, which stretches back to the 15th century. A scene of the Lord Mayor's River Procession of 1800 is depicted before Christopher Wren’s soaring dome of St Paul’s. The Merchant Taylors’ barge is at the centre of the image, identifiable by the carved stern board and banner showing the Company’s coat of arms. The arms of the City fly on the banner behind the stern board. A large number of boatmen can be seen to the rear of the barge, powering the vessel. Members of the Company can be seen waving to the crowds watching from the river bank, and a trumpeter plays from the stern.
Observers and revellers look on, as the Merchant Taylors barge appears neck and neck with the Skinners’ Company barge; identifiable by the three crowns on the coat of arms on their stern board. This echoes the historic tussle between the two Companies where both wanted to be ahead of the other in the Order of Precedence of the Great Twelve Livery Companies. It was agreed, by Lord Mayor Robert Billesden in 1484, that the two Companies would share an equal position in the Order of Precedence, and in 1516 it was decreed that the Merchant Taylors and Skinners held positions of 6th and 7th, swapping annually. This sense of competition is echoed here in Raymond’s mural.
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The Lord Mayor’s Show, established in 1453, began its life as a river procession (where the term ‘floats’ derives from). The Show was waterborn for 400 years, where the Lord Mayor was carried from the City to Westminster, where they were sworn in before the Barons of the Exchequer. From 1857, the Port of London Authority moved the pageant back to the City’s streets, and it then took the form which still continues today. In 1953, the 500th anniversary of the first Lord Mayor’s river pageant was celebrated by reviving the waterborne procession, and 150 boats - or ‘floats’ - travelled along the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster.
When Mr. Raymond painted the mural in 2000, he hid an image of a golf club within the composition (a favourite sport of the Master, Geoffrey Holland). If you search hard, you will be able to spot it!
