Why all the fuss about a bunch of strangely-dressed men?

In October 2002, Venue magazine thought it had a major exclusive. During the research for a feature on who runs Bristol and Bath, we talked to Andrew Densham, master of the Merchant Venturers. During the interview we were offered a scoop: Densham said he had "no objection" to publishing a full list of Merchants - something that has never been done in the organisation's 450-year history. He said the organisation was making efforts to become more modern, and he would just have to put it to all the members at their next meeting.
Six months, and many, many requests later, the Society's official spokesman D'Arcy Parkes told us that we couldn't have a list after all. He said that the data protection act prevented them from giving us members' details - which is true only if the members have not given their consent to their details being made public. "It's a private organisation and not obliged to give you a list," he added, tersely.
So we set about investigating this exclusive and powerful club. We have identified 55 of its 70 or so members - the most comprehensive list of Merchants ever published. We've discovered an inner circle of Merchants that runs the organisation, and unravelled some of the ties that bind them together: the schools, businesses and public appointments that members share. We've found out how much land and property they own. We've tried to establish how far their influence spreads. We've also uncovered details of multi-million pound shareholdings they've recently held in companies accused of human rights abuses, smuggling and trading with some of the most brutal regimes on earth.