One further point remains to be discussed: the name that is to be given to this school. Through a misunderstanding of London practice Camarero thought that the expression At the Signe of the Platt, used by several of the school’s members, [64] was the vital common denominator and he put this forward as a suggested title. In fact, this merely referred to the signboards hanging outside their various shops, which, naturally enough, depicted the mark of their trade, a chart, or, as it was commonly called in the period, a platt.

Professor Smith has suggested three possible titles, English, Thames and Drapers’ schools. [65] The term English School is unnecessarily vague and is not generally favoured, but the title Thames School has won considerable support. This has much to recommend it, but is it the most precise term available? True, all the chart-makers with whom we are concerned worked close to the Thames, but where else could they have worked? The sailing communities of the Thames-side parishes were at once their source of information and their market for completed charts. There are few significant English chart-makers of the seventeenth century who fall outside this school but John Seller, who is known to have produced a few manuscript charts [66] and yet had no connection with the Drapers’ Company, must have been a close neighbour of Gascoyne and Hack at Wapping. Of the Elizabethan chart-makers, Thomas Lupo, Robert Norman, Richard Polter and Gabriel Tatton all worked close to the Thames [67] but neither they, nor their contemporaries William Borough, Thomas Hood and Nicholas Reynolds, appear in the Drapers’ records. The term Thames School suggests that locality was the defining characteristic and on this basis there is an obvious justification for including other names when these individuals are known to have worked close to the Thames. But the men who must be collectively defined here lived up to a century apart. Their connection was a vertical one through training rather than a horizontal one through overlapping careers. What makes them into a school is the distinctive style of their work and what caused this was the fact that they, and only they, were the product of one particular master-apprentice progression. Since the distinguishing features of their charts have not been found in the work of any chart-makers outside the school there is only one point of reference that can provide a title which includes all of them while at the same time excluding all other English chart-makers, and that is the organisation which, if it did not actually train them, certainly provided the framework within which this happened - the Drapers’ Company. It is therefore proposed that the term Drapers’ School should be adopted.

Into the Drapers’ School would go all the thirty-seven names on the Apprentice Tree. Some probably never even completed their apprenticeship; some never drew a chart at all; some abandoned chart-making in later life. But, until we have firm evidence that the unknown members of the school had no connection with the chart-making trade at all, the list should be preserved intact. It has been demonstrated that the freedom was not necessarily taken up even by practising chart-makers and unless this happened the Company’s records would have nothing to say about them. We have also drawn attention to the probability that signed charts by known chart-makers are at least partially in the hand of their apprentices. One day, charts signed by Josias Solmes or Thomas Comberford, or even one of the more shadowy figures, may be found and there are certainly a number of unsigned works which have the school’s hallmarks. The story is far from complete but we can be sure that the records of the Drapers’ Company will always remain our primary source of information about this School.

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COPYRIGHT 1973 Francis Edwards and Carta Press,  All rights reserved.
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Reference to the Apprentice Tree		Birth	Date Apprenticed	For how many years	Father’s Profession	Where Living	Date of Entry into the Freedom	Quarterage Payments	Livery	Range of Dated Charts	Death
26	ACRES, John [68]		1656	10	Gardener	Shoreditch
9	BADELEY, John [69]		1643	7	Citizen & fishmonger	London
10	BURSTON, John		1628	8	Mariner	Ratcliff	1638	1638-64		1638-65
4	CHISLEDEN, William		1604	7
33	CLUBB, Joseph		1677	7	Citizen & cook	London
11	COCKETT, George		1634	9	Gentleman	Westminster
13	COLLIER, John		1638	7	Maltster	Henley-on Thames
5	COMBERFORD, Nicholas		1613	8			1621	1622-69		1641-70	1673 [70]
15	COMBERFORD, Thomas				Son of above, entered by patrimony		1656	1656-7 1665-6
2	DANIEL, John		c. 1565 [71]				1590	1605-48		1612-42	1649 [72]
31	FITZHUGH, Augustine / Anthony [73]		1675	7	Maltster	Bedford				1683-97
8	FLETCHER, Richard		1635	9	Yeoman	Hendon	1644
37	FOWLER, Richard		1719	7	Citizen & carman	London
34	FRIEND, John		1681	8	Cordwainer	St. Katherines by the Tower	1689	1690-2 1711 1719		1703-9 [74]
36	FRIEND, Robert		1711	8						1719-39
30	GASCOYNE, Joel		1668	7	Sailor	Hull	1676	1676-89		1676-1703 [75]	1705 [76]
23	GREENHILL, Henry [77]		1663	7	Merchant	London
25	HACK, William		1671	9	Innholder	Winchester				1682-1700	1708 [78]
6	HANMER, William		1622	9	Tailor	St. Katherines by the Tower					1625 [79]
21	HOPKINS, Abraham		1657	7	Citizen & draper	London
27	JOHNSON, John		1658	9	Innkeeper	Walpole, Norfolk
16	LANCESTER, James		1656	7	Vintner	Deptford	1663			1679
18	MATHEWS, Gervase		1658	7	Bricklayer	Deptford
20	PARRYS, Robert		1657	7	Citizen & haberdasher	London
24	PHILLIPS, Thomas [80]		1669	9	Sailor	Deptford
22	SKINNER, Arthur		1659	7	Citizen & haberdasher	London
7	SOLMES, Josias / Joseph [81]		1632	7	Citizen & joiner	London	1640	1642-4 [82]
35	TAYLOR, Richard		1692	7	Citizen & tornator (ie turner)	London
17	THORNTON, John	1641 [83]	1656	8	Surgeon & instrument-maker	Aldgate	1665	1665-75	1703-7	1667-1701	1708 [84]
19	THORNTON, Joseph		1665	7	Brother of John above
20	THORNTON, Peter	1650 [85]	1668	7	Brother of John
32	THORNTON, Samuel				Son of John, entered by patrimony		1709			1707-9	1715 [86]
28	VICARS, Timothy		1666	7	Gentleman	Stepney
1	WALSH, James						[1554]				[1601] [87]
3	WALSH, Piers						1590
14	WELCH, Andrew	1635 [88]	1649	8	Yeoman	Deptford	1669	1670	1695-8 [89]	1674-81	1699 [90]
12	WILD, Charles	1620 [91]	1637	8	Mariner	Ratcliff	1652	1656-62	1669-83		1684 [92]