Bill Gloyn has beel elected and installed as the new Master of the Masons' Livery Company, the Worshipful Company of Masons, in the City of London.

Bill has been a member of the Company for nearly 20 years. He was ceremonially gowned and invested with his badge of office – an ornate replica of the Company coat of arms – on 16 June. His wife Erika was also presented with her badge of office at the following lunch.

Although an insurance broker and Chartered Surveyor by profession, Bill has been struck by the warm welcome he has been given during his travels the past two years, when he has been learning a lot about stone and the people in the industry. He even spent what he describes as "enjoyable and humbling weekend on a course at Orton Trust" in Northamptonshire in order to understand just a little about the stonemason’s craft.

Bill and Erika have now started a busy year of Livery events which will be a challenge to their waistlines. However, they have also committed to try to see all the colleges and cathedral workshops that the Company and its charities support. Even before being installed, they visited Gloucester Cathedral when attending the Gloucester Stone Carving Festival in May. There they met many trainees and other masons as well as collecting some masons’ marks for the Register that has been set up by the Company (click here to visit the register and add your own mark).

Livery Companies such as the Masons have a heritage that goes back many hundreds of years. They can appear to be rather stuffy and perhaps daunting to those more used to a stonemason’s workshop. However, the Masons Company is a great supporter of training for the craft, making grants and awarding bursaries and prizes to many students across the country.

During his trips as Master, Bill is anxious to dispel the misconceptions that date back to when Livery Companies were rather like gentlemen’s clubs, with cigars and leather armchairs. Nothing could now be further from the truth with the total charitable contribution of all 110 City Companies having topped £41million in the latest recorded figures in 2010.

Getting to the root of the business, during the next year there will be Company visits to quarries in Portland and Horsham. Weymouth College and York Minster, together with prize-givings at Building Crafts College and City & Guilds of London Art School, are already on the agenda, with other venues to follow.

One of the initiatives for the coming year has been the generation of funds to assist younger Yeoman Mason members of the Company to travel to London for some of the social events that will be held in a very informal atmosphere – accompanied by plenty of suitable refreshment.

The first of these will be held on Tuesday 27 October when two leading experts will present illustrated talks about the way in which Roman stonemasons went about their craft and highlighting some of the remaining examples of that work still to be found in the capital.

Anyone interested in knowing more about that evening or the Masons’ Livery Company in general should contact the Clerk, Giles Clapp, on  clerk@masonslivery.org / Tel: 0207 489 7834.

Meet Bill Gloyn:

William (Bill) Joshua Gloyn, FRICS

Master, Worshipful Company of Masons 2015-16

Bill is a Londoner, born, bred and still residing in the capital. He joined the Worshipful Company of Masons in 1997 after first being invited to play the organ for an Installation Service and then finding himself in considerable sympathy with the aims and objectives of the Company.

He has been Chairman of the Communications Committee and Editor of “Tablets” – the Company newsletter. He was an Ambassador for the Lord Mayor’s charity in 2011/12 and is a member of the City Livery Club.

There was no previous direct family involvement with Livery Companies, although one of Bill’s most treasured possessions is the certificate presented to his father in 1947 by the Plumbers' Company when he became a Master Plumber.

His school career ended at 16, due to the need to help support the family finances following his father’s early death. That background has influenced his interest in supporting young stonemasons in training for the craft.

He entered the world of insurance and started working for Commercial Union, now Aviva. His first job was linked to the commercial property portfolio owned by the LCC.

Bill spent all his working life dealing with the insurance and risk management aspects of commercial property and construction. Until retirement in August 2013, he was a Partner, European Real Estate, JLT Specialty, a global insurance brokers. Previously he had been Chairman, Real Estate Europe within the giant Aon Corporation, a Director of the property management subsidiary of English Property Corporation and vice President – Insurance of Olympia & York Canary Wharf Ltd.

During his career, Bill took on wider pan-industry roles, being President of the City Property Association for two years and subsequently its Treasurer. He was Chairman of the BPF Insurance Committee for some 17 years and a regular lecturer, writer and broadcaster on property and construction insurance issues. He was also a European Vice-President of FIABCI, the international real estate organisation and a contributor to courses for the College of Estate Management, MATRICS and a tutor for the Construction Law MA for Kings College London. Bill sat on several government working parties, focussing on latent defects, legal indemnities and flood insurance.

In 2005 he was invited to join the Chartered Surveyors’ Livery Company as one of its first non-qualified Liverymen.

Before he retired, Bill was honoured by being awarded an Eminent Fellowship of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in recognition of his contribution to the real estate world, Honorary Lifetime Membership of the BPF and a 50-year membership award from the Chartered Insurance Institute. All that signalled, he says, a time to retire gracefully.

Bill married Erika in 1982 and they have a daughter, Elizabeth, a lecturer in Classics at Royal Holloway University who presented Bill and Erika with their first grandchild in April. She is the latest member of the family to join the Masons' Livery, when she was accepted into the Company on 14 July. Their son George, an econometrician with a major media company, joined the Company in 2013.

Outside Livery activities, Bill is an active church musician (organist and singer) and leads both the RICS Singers and an occasional choir in Snape, Suffolk, where he and Erika have a second home. That allows them to savour the music and other activities offered by the local area, including Snape Maltings. Bill is also a keen watercolour painter and enjoys relaxing in the garden – when he has time!

The Worshipful Company of Masons, 8 Little Trinity Lane, London, EC4V 2AN. Tel: 0207 489 7834.