Following a suggestion by Sir Kenneth Cork, then Aldermanic Sheriff, that members of professional Institutes might form Livery Companies, several members of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators met on 3 November 1976 and resolved to incorporate a guild to be called the Company of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
The Company’s petition to the Court of Aldermen to become a Livery Company was approved and on 12 January 1978, at a special meeting of the Court of Aldermen at the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor, Air Commodore Sir Peter Vanneck, presented the Letters Patent to the founding Master of the Company, Mr. John Wedgwood.