Officers
The governing body of the Company is called the Court of Assistants.
This Court has four Officers, who change annually. Currently, they are:
The Master
Geoffrey J. Osborne BEM
The Second Master
Beverley E.G. Puxley
The Warden
Bryan F.W. Baughan
The Renter Warden
Dr Stevyn D Gibson MBE
The remainder of the Court consists of Past Masters and several senior Liverymen, who serve on the Court as Assistants.
The Court of Assistants, and Livery as a whole, is supported in its smooth running by a Clerk and Beadle. They are:
Clerk
Peter J Wilkinson CB CVO
Beadle
Mr C.John Cash MBE
Two Masters:
The Worshipful Company of Cooks is the only Livery Company to appoint two Masters. Some say that this may reflect the merger of its two founding guilds. The apocryphal and accepted story is that the appointment of two Masters resolved the problem of both the King and Lord Mayor requiring Master Cooks’ services on the same day. Thus, to ensure that they both received food of the highest quality, two Masters were necessary. However, the historical evidence remains vague and inconclusive.