The “City Biography” which is inclined where possible to attribute humble origins to its subjects, having referred to his early days leading packhorses carrying wool from Wiltshire (perhaps no more than an indication that the best place to begin a career in a family business is at the bottom) goes on to say that “by great industry and spirit of enterprise and good fortune he acquired prodigious wealth and in his family life lived in all the taste and luxury of society to which he had allied himself by marriage”. This seems a fair summary on one who in business was, with his brother, Sir Thomas, head of the great city’s commercial house of Cloth Factors of Samuel and Thomas Fludyer later known as Fludyer Marsh and Hudson, which enabled him to amass a fortune which at his death in 1768 amounted to almost a million pounds, and which the historian Lewis … compared with that of Lord Bath (£1,200,0000) who died in 1764. His social aspirations are sufficiently indicated by his own marriage to a niece of the Earl of Cardigan, and those of his sons respectively to a niece of the Duke of Montague and a daughter of the Earl of Westmoreland. Samuel Fludyer’s last years were somewhat clouded by a scandal over the export of contraband cloth to India. He survives, if at all, in the little read pages of the satirical poem “The Ghost” published in 1762 by John Wilkes’ friend and political ally Charles Churchill in which Fludyer appears as “Dulman” the City Magistrate who as Lord Mayor tried the Cork Lane conspirators in 1761.

The second of he Company’s Aldermen, William Plomer (d.1801) became a Liverymen of the Company a few months after Fludyer’s translation to the Clothworkers, in 1752. He was Common Councillor for Aldgate 1765-72, Alderman for Bassettslaw 1772-1801, Sheriff 1774-75 and Lord Mayor 1781-82. He was Knighted in 1782 and held office a Treasurer of the Honorable Artillery Company from 1780-93 and as President 1793-95. “City Biography” describes him as beginning life with the usual humble origins, in his case in a “dark oil shop near Aldgate”, and subsequently as “having saved £30,000 he obtained the highest City Honors and retired extremely rich”. Its notice of Plomer is embellished with a quotation from Horace which has been translated as “the people hiss at me, but I applaud myself at home when I gaze at the money in my coffers”. Plomer earned a reputation for a degree of eccentricity as is indicated by the stories mentioned below, and his widow appears to have continued the tradition by ending her days living in a hut in Epping Forest which enabled her to continue also the tradition of being the subject of a satirical print. However Plomer was a much better Company man than Fludyer taking office as Master of the Company at the end of his year as Lord Mayor, i.e. for the year 1782-83, and he was Master again in 1790-91. The Court minutes record the fact that the members of the Court received invitations to Plomer’s Lord Mayor’s Banquet, adding with a sense of evident enjoyment that echoes down the years “the viands for the dinner remarkable good, profusion of game, great plenty in the dessert with iced cream etc – the wine was good vintage, Burgundy, Claret, Champaign, Red Port etc.”

So far as the Lords Mayors and Adlermen were concerned, the second half of the 18th century was one of greater involvement in national politics than at any time since, and its commencement was marked by two permanent changes. First in 1742 the election of Robert Williams, a cooper, as Lord Mayor without his translation to one of the Great Companies, showed there was in fact no rule banning members of Minor Companies from that office, so that although some Aldermen continued for a time to translate, the office of Lord Mayor was increasingly to be filled from Minor Companies. Secondly the completion of the Mansion house in 1752 has provided a permanent home for Lord Mayors during their term of office ever since.