The Drapers’ Company –
Archivist’s Digitisation Projects
A case study examining SDS City of London’s specialist scanning, digitisation and atomisation of non-standard and “heritage” documentation for The Drapers’ Company...
Boyd’s Roll
A collection of volumes detailing the apprentices and Freemen of the Drapers’ Company Boyd’s Roll
The source used for data entry of The Drapers’ Company membership information is known as “Boyd’s Roll”, a holograph calendar of manuscript sources created by P. Boyd in the 1930s. It covers the Company records from the thirteenth century to 1934, and provides biographical information about Drapers’ members, and indeed often detailed accounts of their careers, organised in alphabetical order. Much of this information is in note form, and Boyd used his own system of abbreviations and codes.
Thomas Howell’s Ledger 1522 to 1527
William Roche was bound apprentice in the Drapers’ Company in 1492. In 1502-3 Roche exported 100 cloths from London. He rose to prominence in the Spanish trade, exchanging cloth for oil, iron and other goods; one of his apprentices was Thomas Howell, whose ledger gives a detailed account of the trade.
In 1537, Thomas Howell, a Welsh merchant trading in Bristol, London and Seville, bequeathed 12,000 gold ducats to the Drapers’ Guild to provide dowries “every yere for Maydens for ever”. His “Merchant’s Mark” is still used as a logo for Howell’s school in Llandaff, Cardiff.
Various rare and unique volumes
- Irish Plantation Map Book
- Plan Book Appendix 1855
- Property Book Surveyed in 1698
- Survey of Several Estates 1819
Three Volumes of Townland Surveys of 1857 held in Drapers’ Hall, London
Maps containing information on the individual townlands of the Drapers’ Estate including county, barony, parish, townland and farm boundaries: rivers and streams; road and bridges; dams or weirs; forts and mounds; kilns and ruins; quarries, gravel or sandpits; wells or springs; bogs or uncultivated ground; farm layouts; fields and field sizes; houses and other buildings and tenant’s names.
- Vol. 1 - Moneymore Estate
- Vol. 2 - Brackagh Slieve Gallion Estate
- Vol. 3 - Draperstown Esate
A list of the leases deposited by the Drapers’ Company in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. In 2014, a book was published (Ballinacreen Historical Society and Sperrins Gateway) using the scans of the original volumes digitised by SDS City of London.
