Master Water Conservator

Freemen and friends gathered on Southwark Bridge to celebrate a Freeman’s ancient “right” to bring sheep to market over the Thames, toll free.   It is organised each year by the Worshipful Company of Woolmen and raises funds for The Woolmen Charity and The Lord Mayor’s Appeal.    Southwark Bridge was completely closed to traffic and provided a great setting for the teams from many Livery companies to drive their sheep across the river. This year the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators entered two teams and we were supported and encouraged by a large number of friends and family.   Fortunately the Livery teams and the sheep all seemed to know which way to go and there was little rebellion from the sheep. After team M successfully drove the sheep to the middle of the river, team N took over to complete the job.   It was great fun and the sheep seemed to enjoy it.   They are Mule sheep, born and bred in Yorkshire near Hawes, so know their stuff. ...

City of London Livery Companies were invited by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust to the Grand Hall of the Old Bailey.   We had an introduction by Mr Rupert Kenyon-Slaney DL, Chairman of the Development Committee, on the history of Ironbridge, before a lecture by Rachel Skinner CBE FREng FICE, Executive Director WSP. Rachel took us on a fascinating journey from 1750 on the intended and unintended consequences of the industrial revolution and understanding of climate change.   As industrialisation was in full swing in 1896 Swedish scientists reported changes in the atmosphere were causing a greenhouse effect. By 1912 the impact of coal burning was quite considerable and in 1922 it was apparent that the Arctic icebergs were melting faster.   By 1950 scientists and politicians were aware of the problem but no action was taken.   1970 was the tipping point when the effects could be clearly seen but many were choosing not to look. She pointed out that now we are break...

The Lady Mayoress, Aldermen and Livery Companies were invited to a concert in the Guildhall with over 200 children from the City of London family of schools and their families and friends.   It was the culmination of a year-long project launched in collaboration between the City of London, the Diocese of London and St Paul’s Cathedral.   Pupils had visited St Stephen Walbrook, St James Garlickhythe and St Paul’s Cathedral, and created an art piece and written poetry. The concert featured Wren-inspired songs written and composed by Richard Quesnel, Director of Music, City Schools.   They celebrated Wren’s achievements as a mathematician, architect and designer.   Where else would you get a verse including cantenary curve, Y equals a cosh x over a! The lyrics of other songs drew from historical facts, street names and famous London landmarks, and the beat of footsteps through London.   We also had a poem by George Herbert set to music and a song based on Wen’s e...

34 Livery Company Masters joined with members and colleagues of the Honourable Company of Air Pilots for the annual Tymms lecture on ‘The British Army’s Attack Helicopter Capability’ presented by Colonel David Amlôt MBE at the RAF Club.  Many of the Masters and I were not familiar with the subject but we all found the presentation fascinating.  He gave us a brief history of the Apache helicopter, a summary of operations in Afghanistan and Libya in the last two years and then focused on the new AH-64E V6 Guardian and its unique capabilities. The aircraft has evolved over many years in light of experience in different theatres.   He described it as a digital aircraft and the pilot sits in the back seat as they can see more (often claimed by other back seat drivers).   The controls are duplicated for the front seat for the second pilot.   It takes 42 days to build with all components easily replaced.   Eight months are needed to learn to fly and eight mont...

The modern Livery Companies meet every six months and this dinner was arranged by the Honourable Company of Master Mariners at the Butchers’ Hall.   The Master Mariners are the oldest of the Modern Livery Companies.   In March 1932 they became the City of London’s 78 th Livery Company, the first since 1848.   In addition to 34 modern Livery Companies there are three companies without Livery and two Guilds.    The Water Conservators were represented by the Fleet Warden Carolyn Roberts and myself as Master. The Master of the Master Mariners gave us a history of the Master Mariners’ Company.   In 1928 King George V acknowledged the collective professional ism of the British Merchant Navy sea captains by granting the recently formed Company of Master Mariners the title “Honourable”, an exceptional rare gift, given only by Royal prerogative. As a company we have strong connections with the Master Mariners, having used their hall HQS Wellington on many occas...

It was an honour to be invited on behalf of the Water Conservators to attend lunch with the Worshipful Company of Farmers (WCF), number 80 of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Its roots go back to the Cornmongers’ Guild in the 14th century, and the present company was established in 1952.  They have their own modern Livery Hall, which they share with the Fletchers’ Company.  They are a modern Livery company as traditionally they delivered their produce outside the City, eg Borough Market, and it was the other older companies such as the Grocers who supplied the City. In his welcome, the Master Richard Davies explained that, as part of their commitment to farming, the Company run very highly regarded educational courses at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, Cranfield University and Dartington Hall, Totnes, arrange lectures and support city farms.   They give grants of over £40K per year.   He also claimed that farming was the oldest professio...

  28 Bridges, 21.6 miles, 300 crews from across the world including rowing clubs, pubs, schools, boating societies and the armed services, thousands of spectators - London’s River Marathon Water Forget-me-not , the traditional Thames Watermen’s Cutter belonging to the Water Conservators, joined other Livery Companies and their cutters to compete with hundreds of other fixed seat craft.   The race is organised by the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames.   It is based on the Watermen tradition and each crew carries at least one passenger and cox, along with a 3’ x 2’ flag.   I stepped forward as the passenger, having tried to reduce weight over the preceding month to avoid excess baggage. We entered the water at Greenwich as the fastest teams start at the back, ie furthest downstream.   Our start was not auspicious when, after casting off, the incoming tide caused us to bump an Uber Boat catamaran.   From our vantage point of a few cen...

I would not normally comment on a product launch, but this was exceptional.  The Future Water Association launched their Future Water Record card – a state of the nation type assessment of eight key aspects relating to pipes and sewers.  At the launch, sector representatives described the work under way to improve the quality of the water network and its management, and the measurement of improvements. There was commitment to push for universal smart metering of water supply and a determination to understand better the health of the network.   Sewer monitoring and flow measurement need to improve.   There was concern about the future sourcing of professionals for the industry and the need to improve diversity.   Customer side leakage accounts for up to 50% of overall leakage and the challenge is to raise customer awareness and action. Concern was raised over the level of, and lag between, funding, research, innovation and its wide scale adoption. Overall, I ...

Many Livery Company Masters, Members of the City of London Corporation and other City leaders attended a reception hosted by the City of London Chamber in their prestigious Old Broad Street home.  In the packed hall we welcomed by Alderman Prem Goyal OBE, Founding Chair, City of London Chamber and Chairman, Audit and Risk Management Committee, City of London Corporation. Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman, City of London Corporation, then shared the City vision for economic growth.  He emphasised the role of the financial services in boosting UK growth, particularly their investment in digital technology and the need to simplify systems of working.  He described how sustainable finance was achieving the transition to net zero.  The City had a pivotal role in insurance, protecting against project failure. Sustainable finance was at the heart of economic development.  The UK was the first G7 country to require ESG (environmental, social, and governance) resilience, a ...

The Livery Climate Action Group with the Guild of Investment Managers held an in-person seminar for members of livery companies to learn more about how their Charity and Livery funds could meet their growth requirements, meet environment, sustainability and governance standards (ESG), and transition to net zero.  I attended with Past Masters and Company Trustees Peter Hall and Rob Casey.  Speakers included: Tessa Younger Stewardship Lead, Environmental at CCLA, Eoin Murray Head of Investment at Federated Hermes, together with the Master of the Guild of Investment Managers Henry Pollard CC. It was an intensive evening in which fashionable investment ideas were debunked and ESG investing was described as nothing special. The various risks were put in context.   Sovereign risk – stranded assets Climate risk – physical risk and transition risk Food security – supply chain disruption, crop failure Energy security – energy crisis, inconstant energy supply Water security – dro...

The Water Conservators and our cutter Water Forget-me-not were invited to join other cutters to accompany the Royal shallop 'Jubilant' to carry a Strontium ion optical atomic clock from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) at Teddington to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.  It was also the 21 st anniversary of the launch of Jubilant at Isleworth.  The Strontium ion clock “ticks” more than 400 million million times a second. NPL says  “ Optical atomic clocks have many potential applications. These include quantum sensing, synchronisation of high-speed networks, space science and tests of fundamental physical theories. In future, optical clocks could even lead to the SI unit of time, the second, being redefined.” I thought that they were useful! Following an early start the crews and passengers assembled at the London Apprentice at Isleworth for bacon or egg butties - the first time for many years that I have been drinking (tea) in a pub an hour before opening time...

  Members of Livery Companies and the Corporation of London joined with the South Georgia Heritage Trust in the presence of HRH the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Lawrence at All Hallows by the Tower.   After a tour of the church led by city guides and music by the Square Mile Choral Scholars we were welcomed by the Vicar and Chaplain to the Water Conservators, the Revd Katherine Hedderly. The special event was to mark the return to All Hallows of Sir Earnest Shackleton’s Quest crow’s nest.   It had travelled thousands of miles and featured in exhibitions at Athy, Ireland and Grytviken, South Georgia to celebrate the venture by the ship Quest , a converted Norwegian sealer to the Antarctic in 1921-22. We heard from a team of speakers including Alderman Prof Michael Mainelli, honorary member of the Water Conservators and the Lady Mayoress Felicity Lyons.   They explained that the Quest was built for Arctic waters with a reinforced bow sheathed in ...