What is the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors all about? Ancient rituals? Funny handshakes? Neither of the above. As Sarah Herbert finds out, today's livery company is more about promoting the profession and bridging gaps in funding and education than ceremony.
The City of London's guilds and livery companies have been around for the best part of a thousand years. Yet despite their great heritage, or perhaps because of it, they still seem shrouded in mystery. Their archaic names – the Worshipful Company of Lorimers, or Bowyers or Scriveners – suggest arcane rites and rituals involving ornate tongs and rolled-up trouser legs.
But in fact, their history is as prosaic as it is long. The early companies, mostly created around the 11th century, were the medieval equivalent of trading standards departments – checking the quality of goods, controlling imports, setting wages and working conditions, training apprentices and licensing the traders to carry out their business around the Guildhall in the heart of the City. They continue this role to this day, maintaining standards, promoting education and carrying out charitable work.
One of the most modern of these companies is the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors, which was founded in 1977. Comprising around 350 members, its activities fall into four main areas: charitable, educational, ceremonial and fellowship.
Its charitable activities are many and varied. They include the Toby Sutton Research Award of £3 000 to sponsor a property research project, the sponsoring of a string quartet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, supporting promising students at university and giving prizes, and supporting the surveying and mapping branches of the three armed forces: the 135 Independent Geographic Squadron, the Hydrographic Surveying Squadron and the 7010 Photographic Interpretation Squadron. The Worshipful Company also supports a youth and community centre in Spitalfields, London, for the Bangladeshi community. Charitable funds, now nearing the £1m mark, are raised from annual covenants, the annual UK Property Marketing and Design Awards (Pamada), the inter-livery 'swimathon' and various money-making schemes, such as the sale of specially bred rose Rosa City Livery.
The surveyors of tomorrow
Education is a very active area. The company is closely involved with three schools in deprived areas of London, donating £20 000 to them each year, providing 'curricular enrichment', organising seminars for them about the workings of the City, paying for trips to Ironbridge in Shropshire (pictured above) and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, arranging tours of the Temple area of London, buying electronic noticeboards, and even providing table tennis tables to enable female Muslim pupils to engage in sport, something that is usually restricted by their dress code.
The Company's main thrust, however, is promoting surveying – introducing the concept of the profession as a career. It visits the schools regularly, holding seminars on the profession to 14 to 16-year-olds in the throes of their career decisions. Says Roger Southam, Vice-Chairman of the Worshipful Company's Education Committee: “We speak to the children in their own language, showing how surveyors are involved with schools, shopping centres and so on – things that they have a concept of.”
The Company has also recently become involved in mentoring, with individual liverymen following their charge's schooling and early career. As Rob Bould, a former Chairman of the Education Committee, says: “I know it’s a cliché, but it’s a chance to give something back from the profession that we have been lucky enough to follow to those who are less privileged. It's a real reality check seeing the challenges facing some of these children, and it’s a great way to get involved in some direct action.”
One of the schools, in Dagenham, East London, was one of the worst schools in the country a few years ago, with children setting fire to the classrooms, but special funding has helped it get into the top 50. Now that Treasury funding is drying up, the Worshipful Company hopes that its charitable contributions will keep these improvements going.
For older students, one of the biggest areas of activity is the Chartered Surveyors Training Trust (CSTT), now an entity in its own right, which provides work-based learning for school-leavers. The Trust places 20 to 30 people aged between 16 and 24 in apprenticeships within surveying, construction and public sector organisations, and mentors them up to the TechRICS qualification. Says Rob Bould: “These are the people that RICS is often unable to focus on – those who come through the NVQ route rather than the university route.”
Roger Southam, Chairman of the CSTT, says: “We’re opening the door for those who wouldn’t otherwise have had an opportunity. It’s gone from strength to strength in the past year, and has become very effective and high powered, with people like Steve Norris and William Hill, Managing Director of Schroders Property Investment Management, on board.”
And it doesn't stop at youngsters. The four-day City Seminar Course gives 30 practising surveyors, architects and engineers an insight into the workings of the City, its markets and institutions, in far greater depth than they would normally be able to get.
It is on the educational side where the Worshipful Company dovetails most closely with RICS. The Institution provides material for the Company's visits to schools and works closely with the Chartered Surveyors Training Trust. As Roger Southam says: “The Worshipful Company is a stand-alone organisation with its own ends and means, but we do have tie-ups with RICS that bring benefits to both parties.” Phill Butler, RICS Marketing Manager, Students and Careers, concurs: “As long as our two organisations continue to have the same ethos, our working relationship will remain strong.”
Ceremonial duties
Many liverymen enjoy the ceremonial aspect of membership. All liverymen have to be freemen of the City of London, a hangover from the days when only freemen could trade around the Guildhall.
Although the recipient no longer enjoys some of the more famous advantages of the award – such as being allowed to drive sheep across London Bridge or carrying a drawn sword through the City’s streets – the ceremony of becoming a freeman is still carried out in a historic ceremony in the Guildhall. All liverymen also have the duty to vote in the elections for the City of London’s sheriffs and Lord Mayor.
As many of the traditions go back a thousand years, the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors has tried to be selective in its ceremonies – to ensure that it is respectful of the heritage but also relevant to today's world. For example, a fun day out is still had every year 'upping', or counting, the swans on the Thames, a tradition which began when swans were a delicacy and their ownership was divided between the Queen and the most prominent livery companies.
The ceremonial aspects can, however, prove to be a slight problem in terms of how the Company is perceived. As Brian Lamden, this year's Master of the Company, says: “Some surveyors are reluctant to have anything to do with us as they think we’re some kind of secretive, masonic society. We’re actually nothing of the sort.”
Other RICS members, such as Roger Southam, are much more interested in helping to deliver the aims of the Worshipful Company. “I joined for the Company’s laudable charitable and educational aims,” he says, “and because the delivery structure, which has been around since the 1100s, is all about getting on with things – there's no navel-gazing. The commitments in terms of time are not too arduous and the results make membership of the Company very worthwhile.”
Finally, in terms of fellowship there are a number of inter-livery sporting events in which the Worshipful Company participates, such as clay pigeon shooting, tennis, golf and the swimathon. These activities give liverymen a chance to meet those from other livery companies; and although the term is still only whispered in livery circles, it is a good way of 'networking' with people that you wouldn't necessarily meet in professional life.
This article appeared in RICS Business, June 2006.
