Thomas Bradbury & Sons were silversmiths and Sheffield Plate makers based in Sheffield active between 1795 and 1943. The partnership between Thomas Bradbury, Thomas Watson and James Fenton was formed in 1795 under the name of Watson & Co. They were registered as silversmiths and Sheffield Plate makers. The son of Thomas Bradbury (Thomas II) […]
Storr & Mortimer were Goldsmiths and Jewellers with a Royal Warrant between 1822 and 1839. Paul Storr left working for Rundell, Bridge and Rundell in 1819 and set up in business with John Mortimer. They named their firm Storr & Mortimer with a factory in Grays Inn Lane (now Road) run by Storr and retail […]
The Smily Family were a family of London based silversmiths operating from around 1820 until the late 19th Century. The family silversmith dynasty started with William Smily who was apprenticed in 1809 to Joseph Preston, a spoon and fork maker. When Joseph Preston died in 1815 he passed over to Thomas Wallis II to finish […]
Saunders & Shepherd were silversmiths and jewellers based in London trading from 1869 to the present day. Their claim to fame is the invention of the self-closing bracelet in 1889. The firm was started by Cornelius Desormeaux Saunders (senior) and James Francis Hollings Shepherd in 1869. They registered their silver mark in 1893 and by […]
Roberts & Slater were Sheffield based silversmiths operating between 1845 and 1858. The partnership of William Briggs, Samuel Roberts and Joseph Slater entered their first mark in September 1845 as silver and electroplate manufacturers. The firm also had showrooms in Holborn in London, opened in 1858 and later at Holborn Viaduct (1883). When Joseph Slater […]
Robert Hennell III was part of the large Hennell silversmith family in London. When his father Robert Hennell II retired, Robert III entered his first mark in 1834. The census of 1851 describes him as a silversmith aged 56 employing nine men and his wife Jane with his four sons: Robert (IV) a silver chaser, […]
R. F. Mosley was a Sheffield based cutlery maker who were the first company to manufacture cutlery in what was to become known as ‘stainless steel’. Robert Mosley was the son of an affluent jeweller in Hatton Garden in London who moved to Sheffield as a teenager in 1856. He worked in the house of […]
Richard Gurney was a silversmith working in London in the early part of the 18th Century. He entered his first mark as a largeworker in partnership with Thomas Cooke II in 1727 from a workshop address in Foster Lane, London. His second mark was entered under the name of ‘Richard Gurney & Co’ in 1734. […]
Reynolds Angels is the name given to a portrait painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds first exhibited in 1787. The picture shows five different angles of the head of five-year old Lady Frances Gordon. She sat for Reynolds in July and August of 1786 and again in March 1787. Reynolds tended to reserve his time during […]
Paul Storr is considered one of the most talented English silversmiths of the 19th Century. His legacy of exceptionally well crafted silver has found its way into museums and private collections worldwide, including at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace as well as in the V&A and the Metropolitan Museum in New York amongst many other […]