History of the Company. 141 



Hall, the damage to which does not appear to 

 have been very great, and the Courts of the 

 Company were occasionally held at the New- 

 London Tavern close by. In 181 7, however, 

 the Court seriously entertained the question of 

 letting the Hall and adapting the premises of the 

 London Tavern, which appear to have adjoined, 

 and the lease of which had nearly fallen in. The 

 following year, 1 8 1 8, the necessary repairs to the 

 Hall were stated as involving an expenditure of 

 ^3,000. The Court, however, were indisposed 

 to half measures, and appear to have contemplated 

 the entire rebuilding of the Hall. Nothing, how- 

 ever, was done until March, 1821, when their 

 course was unexpectedly shaped for them by the 

 jg2j entire destruction of the Hall in a 

 The Hall Conflagration which broke out in a 

 es roye . ]-^Q^gg belonging to the Company in 



Foster Lane, and tenanted by Messrs. Butler and 

 Sons, manufacturing chemists. There was now 

 no help for it but to rebuild. The unexpired term 

 of Messrs. Butler's house was purchased by the 

 Company, and part of the site of their house, 

 together with the Clerk's House, was thrown into 

 the new Hall. The furniture, wine, and plate, 

 were removed without loss, and the painted glass 

 windows escaped, and were carefully taken down 

 and apparently reset in the new building. The 

 furniture and the materials saved from the fire 

 were ordered to be sold by public auction, and 

 realised ^500. The present building was erected 

 from designs by the Company's surveyor, Mr. 



L 2 



