Swan upping
ceremony
Swan upping is an annual ceremony in England in which mute swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, ringed, and then released.
History
By prerogative right, the British Crown enjoys ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water. Rights over swans may, however, be granted to a British subject by the Crown (accordingly they may also be claimed by prescription). Until the 16th century, the ownership of swans in a given body of water was commonly granted to landowners. The only bodies who still exercise such rights are two livery companies of the City of London, the Worshipful Company of Vintners and the Worshipful Company of Dyers, who thus share equally with the Crown in the number of swans in the Thames that they own. The tradition of swan upping on the Thames began in the 12th century.
Description
Swan upping is the traditional means by which the swans on the Thames are apportioned among the three proprietors. Its main practical purposes today are to conduct a census of swans and check their health. It occurs annually in the third week of July. Over five days, the Crown's, the Vintners' and the Dyers' respective 'swan uppers' row up the river in skiffs (in recent centuries from Sunbury to Abingdon).
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This entry incorporates text from “Swan upping” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.