Master Water Conservator

On 22 February your Master and his Consort attended the above Dinner as the guest of the Master Constructor. It was a glittering and most enjoyable event. The Constructors, number 99 in order of precedence, are old friends of ours and their Master and Clerk were our guests at the Myddelton Lunch. Our links go beyond the purely livery and, given the closely related backgrounds of our respective companies, included a number of shared business acquaintances. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of their annual awards to industry and the armed forces. Their charity, like ours, focusses on education (I think they said they had supported more than 50 students at university) and they have a flourishing young members’ programme. They also welcomed half a dozen new members at the event.  The Constructors are a fine example of a thriving modern livery with a similar ethos to ourselves. There is much that we can learn from, and share with, them. I hope we have a long and de...

The above races took place on Shrove Tuesday, 21 February, in Guildhall Yard before a throng of spectators. The Water Conservators fielded a full team comprising Master, Master’s Consort, Fleet Warden Dylan Barker and Court Assistant Andy Williamson; we were well supported by a strong and vocal group of fellow Conservators. Master and Consort did not disgrace your Company in their respective heats. However Dylan and Andy were definitely the stars of the event. Dylan won his heat and was the overall winner in the Liveryman section; he came within a neck of winning the grand finale, the overall victor ludorum. Andy for the second year running was deserved winner of the Novelty prize, competing this year as an illuminated St Paul’s Cathedral - the stork on the roof was particularly commended. Hearty congratulations to Dylan and Andy. Another demonstration of the great spirit in our Company!

The Master held his annual dinner for court assistants and partners on 21 February at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. (By Company tradition, court assistants’ partners are the guest of the Master, in recompense for the time court assistants put in on Company business). The reception was held in the drawing room after which we moved on to dinner in the Marie Louise Room, named after a granddaughter of Queen Victoria who lived in this part of the building till the Second World War. Some forty of us attended and a most congenial time was had by all. The food was excellent and we did full justice to the Club’s wines and port. The Master expressed his gratitude to all the Company for all their fellowship and support; we are living up to our mission; there is a great spirit in the air.

The Thames Warden, Martin Bigg, represented the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators at the Franklin lecture (named after the Foundation Master of the Educators Company, Professor Raoul N Franklin CBE, sometime Vice-Chancellor of the City University) given by Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli in the presence of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs in the Mansion House.   The title of Professor Mainelli’s lecture was “Teacher, Tutor, Scholar, I,- A metaverse of education or conundra of confusion” and was attended by leading academics and livery representatives.    Professor Mainelli explored the new technology challenges from neuroscience to the ‘persistent’ Metaverse.   He challenged radical institutions to overcome ‘the establishment’ and, described how the establishment could reform to deliver superior performance for society and its own benefit.   He questioned the specialisation in education, for example, by demonstrating the link between mathematics and art....

  ‘On Monday 13 February Georgina and attended the Lord Mayor’s private lunch at Chartered Accountants’ Hall. This was a glittering and most good humoured event which normally takes place before the Lord Mayor takes office. However the previously scheduled dinner occurred on the very sad day that Her Majesty the Queen passed away and was a sombre occasion of sorrow and reflection which the Lord Mayor was unable to attend.   On this occasion, under Chatham House rules, the Lord Mayor returned to the theme (mentioned in blog 41) of how he was seeking to use his influence, and that of the City of London, to bring different leaders together on matters of national and international importance.   As well as this more serious aspect, the event was a perfect opportunity for Masters and consorts to share perspectives and get to know each other better in preparation for our visit to Glasgow in the summer. The attached photo perhaps gives a flavour of this more social aspect...

On Friday 10 February Georgina and I attended the Worshipful Company of Gardeners’ Banquet at Mansion House. It was as ever a most sociable and glittering occasion. We were entertained by two guest speakers, Dr Clare Matterson CBE, newly appointed Director General of the Royal Horticultural Society, and the Rt Hon The Lord Mayor, Nicholas Lyons. After the dinner I was able to share some words with Lord Mayor due to a common love of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. He had quoted from the Lake Isle of Innisfree in his speech which touched on the mental health benefits of gardening. I mentioned Yeats’ words in the Second Coming ‘the centre cannot hold’ which seem as pertinent now as 100 years’ ago, given the polarised and fractious public debate in many areas. The Lord Mayor commented that he was seeking to bring leaders together on an international scale. I mentioned that the Water Conservators were doing our bit in convening serious debate nationally in the water and environmental...

  The Worshipful Company of Water Conservators was invited by the Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor of London and The Lady Mayoress to a reception at Mansion House to say thank you to participants in the 2022 Lord Mayor’s Show.   Around 133 organisations participated in the show ranging from St Bartholomew’s Hospital celebrating 900 years of history to Rotary International celebrating over 100 years improving health and education.   The Thames Warden, Martin Bigg, and Court Assistant, Andrew Williamson represented the Company.   We were able to meet Alderman Michael Mainelli to hear about his plans for 2023/24 including inviting global cities to the City of London.   We also discussed the Company’s plans for a float this year with Dominic Reid, Pageantmaster, who was very encouraging.

On Friday 3 February a group of Water Conservators, undeterred by the train strike, had a fascinating guided tour of The Charterhouse, originally a monastery, then stately home, then school and now an almshouse (providing accommodation to some 40 brethren, male and female). Before the tour commenced the Master of the Charterhouse went out of his way formally to welcome the Master Water Conservator and showed us a map of the original water supply to the monastery from springs in Clerkenwell (this was before Myddelton’s New River). Medieval monasteries had water supply systems which were very advanced for their times, perhaps in a memory of the Roman villas which they resemble in various other ways. (One can see the Church promoting similar ‘advanced’ water engineering elsewhere, for instance in Wells in Somerset - see blog 36 on Bishop Beckynton). The subsequent tour included a visit to the remains of the original cloister and the story of the monks who died for their faith resistin...