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Over 85 members of the Company and guests joined together for the annual Myddelton lunch in the impressive surroundings of Trinity House.

Our guest speaker was the Deputy Master of Trinity House Rear Admiral Iain Lower CB.  He joined Trinity House from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 2024, following a successful career in the Royal Navy.  He described in detail the impact of water on Trinity House and importantly the infrustructure, vessels and equipment they operate.  He emphasised the impact of climate change and more extreme weather conditions, and the need to work together to address the issues. Our Livery guest was Master Air Pilot John Denyer, a fellow member of the Wet 10.

In her response to our guests the Master, Professor Carolyn Roberts, observed that “when weather becomes extreme, circumstances follow. A single flood can paralyse transport networks. A single heatwave can push energy systems beyond capacity. A single drought can ripple through global food markets. In a tightly connected world, local shocks become systemic ones.”

“The Livery Companies have endured because they adapted. Because they learned. Because they took responsibility for the future, not just the present. If that spirit guides us now, then even in an age of extremes, we can still build a city, a country, and a Company —that is stable, prosperous, and worthy of those who come after us.”

The full text of the Master’s address is reprinted below.

Livery is an institution that has survived plague, fire, war, industrial revolution and globalisation. Few organisations anywhere can claim such continuity, even if The Worshipful Company of Water Conservators, at 25 years, adds only to the recent activity. And that continuity gives us something precious: a long memory of what happens when the world changes faster than our systems.

For most of human history, weather was background noise. Sometimes inconvenient, sometimes dangerous, but generally predictable. Seasons came and went. Rivers rose and fell. Harvests were planned. Cities were built on the assumption that yesterday’s climate would look more or less like tomorrow’s.

That assumption no longer holds. We are now living in a climate that is not merely warmer, but more volatile. Heatwaves that once occurred once in a generation now arrive every few years. Rainfall falls harder, in shorter bursts. Droughts last longer. Storms carry more energy. Sea levels inch upward, while storm surges leap higher. These are not abstract trends. They show up in flooded underground stations, overheated and packed hospitals, cracked runways, closed schools, ruined crops, disrupted supply chains, and rising insurance premiums. Extreme weather is no longer a distant environmental problem. It is a direct operational risk to every institution represented in our Company.

And when weather becomes extreme, circumstances follow. A single flood can paralyse transport networks. A single heatwave can push energy systems beyond capacity. A single drought can ripple through global food markets. In a tightly connected world, local shocks become systemic ones. This is what makes the present moment different from the past. We are not simply dealing with more storms or hotter summers. We are dealing with a world in which stresses cascade: weather becomes finance, climate becomes security, rainfall becomes geopolitics. In Britain, we have already had a glimpse of this future. We have seen record-breaking temperatures that damaged rail lines and grounded aircraft. We have seen flooding that forced families from their homes and councils into emergency mode. We have seen water shortages, wildfire risk, and agricultural disruption. And this is only the beginning. The question, then, is not whether extreme weather will test us; it already is. The question is whether our institutions are prepared for extreme circumstances.

Here the Livery Companies, particularly ours, have something invaluable to offer. We are not merely historic guilds. We are networks of expertise. We bring together engineers, environmental managers, financiers, builders, insurers, logisticians, and countless others who quietly keep Britain. Our forebears helped rebuild London after the Great Fire. Of course, at the bottom of the food chain, this Company’s forbears carried water. But they also standardised trades, created trust, and enforced quality when chaos threatened commerce. They did not wait for perfect certainty. They acted in the face of risk. That is exactly what this moment requires again, for our society and for our Company.

Extreme circumstances demand three things: foresight, resilience, and cooperation.

Foresight means planning not for the average year, but for the worst plausible one, as our Company Treasurer reminds us. It means designing buildings that can handle heat as well as cold, drainage systems that can cope with cloudbursts, and supply chains that do not collapse when one port or one river fails.

Resilience means redundancy, flexibility, and the ability to recover quickly. It is not enough for systems to be efficient; they must be robust. A world of extremes punishes fragility.

And cooperation means breaking down silos. Climate risk does not respect professional boundaries. It touches law, finance, engineering, health, food, transport and governance all at once. No single trade or company can manage it alone. This is where the spirit of the Livery Companies is so powerful. We already understand the need for education, stewardship, and long-term responsibility. I hope we already think in decades, not quarters. We already know that reputation is built slowly and lost quickly. In a world of extreme weather, those values become not quaint—but essential.

There is a temptation, when confronted with something as vast as climate change, to feel either helpless or ideological. But this is not primarily a political challenge. It is a practical one. How do we keep cities liveable? How do we keep markets functioning? How do we protect the vulnerable? How do we insure the uninsurable? How do we design systems that bend instead of break? These are exactly the kinds of problems that guilds, trades, and professions have always solved. So let us see extreme weather not only as a threat, but as a test of institutional character.

Do we retreat into short-term thinking—or do we rise to long-term stewardship?
Do we treat risk as someone else’s problem—or as our collective responsibility?
Do we cling to yesterday’s assumptions—or do we prepare for tomorrow’s realities?

The Livery Companies have endured because they adapted. Because they learned. Because they took responsibility for the future, not just the present. If that spirit guides us now, then even in an age of extremes, we can still build a city, a country, and a Company —that is stable, prosperous, and worthy of those who come after us.