Tailor's Hall stands in Tailor's Court off Broad Street, and was once the home of the important Fraternity of Tailors, a medieval guild also known as The Guild of the Fraternity of St John The Baptist after the neighbouring church on the city wall. But the last guildsman, Isaac Amos, found himself in clover, milking the Fraternity in a way that would have impressed even Jeffrey Archer.
The guild was founded in the reign of Edward II but membership slowly dwindled over the centuries until the early years of the nineteenth century when there was only one member left. Isaac Amos. So Isaac appointed himself Master and paid himself 10 guineas ( £10. 10 shillings ) He called himself to committee meetings and received 12 guineas attendance allowance for turning up.
He even elected himself auditor and received another two guineas fee. The fact that guild funds only contained about £100 didn't matter - it was a lot of money then and Isaac did very well out of being the last of the Fraternity of Tailors.
When he died, a body of trustees was appointed to replace him and most of the remaining money went towards maintaining the guild almshouses, built in Merchant Street in 1701 to replace an earlier charity home in Marsh Street.
By the 1920s, the almshouses were no longer needed and were sold and the remaining remnants of the fund that Isaac milked were distributed among the deserving poor. Now the hall where he ran his one man empire has been sold together with inter- linked 41 Broad Street, and has been turned into self-contained city centre flats.
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