Our military affiliations

It is traditional for there to be links between livery companies and the Armed Forces — Regulars, Reserves and Cadets. These links let the Livery show its support for the military, and its appreciation of all they do to defend the country.

All commanding officers have a mission to nurture links with the civilian population. As the proportion of the population who have done military service shrinks, the services face a growing challenge in projecting an accurate picture of what they do.

The Company is proud to have signed the City of London Armed Forces Covenant — a commitment to those who serve, those who have served and their families, that they are treated fairly and not disadvantaged in daily life.

The programme was begun by our Clerk Colonel David King OBE, Clerk from 2005 to 2015, who proposed that the Farmers Company adopt the tradition of linking with the armed forces.

HMS Defender is the fifth of six Type 45 destroyers, providing anti-air warfare capability through air and missile defence. She displaces 8,500 tonnes, has a top speed of 30 knots, and carries Sea Viper anti-air missiles with a range of up to 70 miles. She has been deployed on tasks from defending the fleet to chasing down drug runners and pirates and providing humanitarian aid.

The Company’s affiliation began with HMS York, a Type 42 destroyer, from 4 June 2007 — when fifty Liverymen visited the ship at Portsmouth during the Master’s visit. It was then that the Company undertook to present a Leadership Trophy each year. York was decommissioned in 2012, and in March 2013 a party from the Company attended the commissioning of HMS Defender.

She has been in dry dock since 2023 for a propeller refit expected to take two to three years. The Company is one of several affiliates alongside the Worshipful Companies of Fletchers, Fullers and Weavers, the Shearmen of Exeter and the Merchants House of Glasgow.

The Westminster Dragoons are a yeomanry squadron of the Army Reserve based at Fulham House in central London — the capital’s only Reserve army cavalry unit, with the role of providing specialist reconnaissance for the British Army on operations.

Formed in the aftermath of the Second Boer War as part of the County of London Yeomanry, they fought at Gallipoli and led British forces onto the beaches during the Normandy invasion in 1944. They most recently saw action on Operation Telic, having been mobilised for the 2003 war in Iraq, and celebrated their centenary in 2019.

Their parent regiment, the Royal Yeomanry, is Britain’s most senior volunteer cavalry regiment. Its band is well used to playing The Farmer’s Boy — it is their regimental march.

RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire is one of the RAF’s busiest stations — the hub of UK Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance, and the main operating base for airborne intelligence aircraft and systems. Around 3,500 service personnel, civil servants and contractors work there.

Air ISTAR is the RAF’s eyes and ears in the sky, giving British and NATO commanders critical information about activity on the ground, in the air and at sea. The station is also home to the Air Warfare Centre and to the Air Battlespace Training Centre.

The affiliation was confirmed in a letter to Master John Reynolds from the then Station Commander, Group Captain R P Barrow OBE RAF, who sought the link because of the farming connections the Company could offer in Lincolnshire. The first visit took place in 2013.

Middlesex Wing is one of six wings within the London and South East Region Air Cadets. Its 24 squadrons bring aviation and adventure to young people between the ages of 12 and 20.

The Air Cadets are supported by the Royal Air Force but are not a recruiting organisation. They offer training useful in both military and civilian life — teamwork, leadership and self-confidence — across activities from flying and sport to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, BTEC qualifications, parades and rock climbing, always with qualified instructors.