Freedom of the City Admission Papers

[Kit]

I have just found that OH's 3g grandfather was made "free of the city" in 1875 at the age of 62 by "redemption in the company of Needle Makers".

I am somewhat amazed and very confused as he has a very well documented life in the commissary and was a commissary general.

Does anyone have any idea why this would have happened?

[Merry]

Does anyone have any idea why this would have happened?


As it's 'by redemption' wouldn't that mean it happened because he paid them to become a freeman of the City?

[Kit]

I don't know Merry. What benefit would it be to be a free man? Or is it just some sort of status symbol?

[kiterunner]

By that date, just ceremonial / status really. There is info on here:
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/dbextra.aspx?dbid=2052

[Kit]

Thanks Kate. So he paid to be free and there wasn't much benefit to it. It must have been very prestigious.

He was a miserable old so and so, he wouldn't help his 16 year old granddaughter when her parents died leaving her to raise her 5 younger siblings, the youngest aged 2.