Cordwainer recovered from discarded or repaired shoes. Today, many makers of bespoke shoes will also repair their own work, but shoe repairers are not normally in a position to manufacture new footwear. In London, the occupation of cordwainer was historically controlled by the guild of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. They were granted a royal charter of incorporation in 1439, but had received their first ordinance in 1272. The ward of the City of London named Cordwainer is historically where most cordwainers lived and worked. Until 2000, a Cordwainers' Technical College existed in London. For over a hundred years, the College
Cordwainer Smith story is his first-published, "Scanners Live in Vain", which led many of its earliest readers to assume that "Cordwainer Smith" was a new pen name for one of the established giants of the genre. It was selected as one of the best science fiction short stories of the pre-Nebula Award period by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It was selected for "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964". Smith's next story did not appear for several years, but readers began recognizing the name on stories and novelettes, often published through "Galaxy Science Fiction". His stories