Water Lane

City (EC3) Maitland says: "In Water Lane is situated Trinity House, which belongs to an ancient Corporation of Mariners, founded in Henry VIII's time for the Regulation of Seamen and the security and convenience of ships and mariners on our coasts. In the said King's reign lived Sir Thomas Spert, Knight Comptroller of the Navy, who was the first founder and master of the said society of Trinity House. He was commander of the biggest ship that then the sea bore, namely Henry Grace de Dieu, built by King Henry near the beginning of his reign. . "The Corporation, one of the considerablest in the Kingdom, is governed by a master, four wardens, eight assistants, and the eldest brothers of the Company, as they are called. The rest of the Company are called Younger Brothers, without any fixed number. For any seafaring men that will are admitted into the Society under that name. But they are not in the Government. "Their service and use is, that they appoint all pilots; they set and place the buoys and sea-marks for the safe direction of ships in their sailing. For which they have certain duties payable by Merchant men. They can licence poor seamen, antient, and past going to sea, to exercise the calling of a waterman upon the Thames, and take in fares, tho' they have not been bound to anyone free of the Watermen's Company."