The article considers the issue of decline of the guild system of London in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It claims that, far from being reactionary institutions, guilds faded out while clearly setting precise trajectories for their trades to follow.The experience of the London Cordwainers’ company shows how in the course of the eighteenth century the guild was applying an “open view”, trying to attract within the company the shoemakers who could not claim any right of membership. The guild supported also new kinds of social and economic institutions,such as the household system, that were considered optimal for the development of the trade.While increasing numbers of apprentices were drawn from London itself or the immediate locality, there was also a high degree of continuity within the trade as well as a pronounced familial dimension.This article argues for a thorough analysis of the specific conditions of trade, guild, and the organisation of production, rather than an en masse dismissal of eighteenth century urban guilds as sclerotic institutions.