Up: Hayward
YOR: 11 of 113
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"We may see our future in the glass of
our past history."
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This story starts with
glass and glaziers, proceeds to iron and ironmongers, combines the two
trades and gradually through its various stages progresses into the
industry known today as Haywards Limited.
Looking back, it is seen to be a story with
an almost logical sequence. But it is one thing to reflect upon what
has been and another upon what may lie ahead. Samuel Hayward, the
founder of the company, could have had little inkling, as he drew his
diamond across a sheet of glass in his City warehouse in the year
1783, of the remarkable developments from that simple act.
At that date, the Hayward family had already
been living within "the square mile" for over two hundred years. The
earliest known member of the family had been George Hayward, a woollen
cloth maker of Bridgnorth in Shropshire, whose son, Sir Rowland Hayward,
had settled in the City of London early in the sixteenth century,
becoming Lord Mayor in 1570. This gentleman, considered by some
historians to be the most notable alderman of his time, greatly
distinguished himself in public and civic affairs, being elected Member
of Parliament for the City, Master of the Cloth Workers' Company and a
Governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers. A friend of Elizabeth
the First, he became her Majesty's confidant and creditor, on one
occasion
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