The Last Days of the Newcastle Assay Office

[dognose]

Hi,

The second half of the nineteenth century saw a sharp downturn in production of silver at Newcastle. Its heyday had been in 1810 when the assay office had marked 23,237oz., but by 1853 the quantity of silver assayed at Newcastle had dropped to 9,644oz. By the following ten years in 1863 it had fallen to 4,394oz., and halved, yet again in 1873 to 1,982oz..

In 1883, the last complete year that the assay office was open, it fell to a mere 316oz. Following this, at the annual meeting of the Newcastle Company of Goldsmiths, held on the 5th May 1884, the sad decision was made, with a heavy heart, to close the Newcastle Assay Office.

On the 20th May 1884, the punches, twenty-one of them, were handed over to Alfred Sheriff, the Collector of Taxes at the Inland Revenue Office, and on 13th June, the local punches, eleven of them, were destroyed in the presence of Alfred Sheriff, James W. Wakinshaw and Thomas Arthur Reed, the Wardens, and also present was James Robson, the last Assaymaster of Newcastle.

The tenancy of the assay office at 12, Dean Court, Dean Street, for which the Company paid £11 per annum to Messers Mather & Armstrong was terminated on 1st May 1885. The following inventory of the furniture of the assay office at the time of closure was recorded in the Company's minute book.

2 X Tables
2 X Armchairs
12 X Small chairs
1 X Iron safe
1 X Pair of scales in glass case*
1 X Furness (Gas)
1 X Furness (Charcoal)
1 X Screw stamping press

* I wonder if these were Matthew Prior's famous scales mentioned in the Parliamentary Report of 1773, Prior claimed they could be turned "by one hair from the back of my hand".

All the above items were sold.
All the remaining relics of the Newcastle Assay Office, the books and paperwork, a circular copper plate of impressed maker's marks, a square plate of impressed date letters for the years 1864-1884 and two oak boxes, one of which the diet was fomerly kept, were last known to have been in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I am unsure of what became of the Newcastle Company of Goldsmiths. The closure of the assay office was not the end of the Company as it is noted that following the closure of the assay office, their meetings were now to be held at the Salutation Hotel at High Bridge.

If this situation arose today, I doubt if we would have seen such an ending. We are now much more aware of our history and traditions and so much more interested in old silver.

So what were the very last assays performed at the Newcastle Assay Office? The last of silver was thirty teaspoons assayed on 22nd April 1884, and the very last was that of thirty gold rings assayed on 2nd May 1884. Both batches were submitted by Robert Millar Craig.

Trev.
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[dognose]

Hi,

Photos of the circular copper plate containing the maker's marks registered with the Company between 1702-1881, and the oak diet box, both mentioned in the above post.




Note that three keys were required to open the box, presumably one key held by each of the Wardens and the other by the Assaymaster.

Trev.

[dognose]

This was how the Town Council of the Borough of Newcastle reported the closure of the Newcastle Assay Office.


A time-honoured institution in Newcastle disappeared to-day, the Goldsmiths' Company having, on their last head meeting day, resolved to resign the guardianship of the hall marks and supervision of the stamping of gold and silver plate in Newcastle, and notice to this effect having been given to Her Majesty's Commissioners of inland revenue, the dies for stamping silver plate were effaced to-day in presence of the officer appointed and the wardens of the company.

The Newcastle Assay Office was established in 1702, and from 1717 the Assay Office was in Dean Court, in Painter Heugh, leading from Dean Street to Pilgrim Street. The following is an extract from an article on this subject in the Newcastle Courant of June 20, 1884 :–" The first assay master whose name we meet on the books of the company is Mr. Francis Batty, who was appointed in 1702. All articles manufactured of gold and silver, except watch cases, had to be taken to the Assay Office of the district, and if found of legal quality, were stamped thus by the assayer. The hallmark showing the district where manufactured, or the hall where assayed, is at Birmingham an anchor; Chester, three wheat sheaves or a dagger; Dublin, a figure of Hibernia ; Edinburgh, castle and lion ; Exeter, castle with two wings; Glasgow, a tree and a salmon with a ring in its mouth ; London, a leopard's head ; Newcastle, three castles ; Sheffield, a crown ; York, five lions and a cross. Then there are standard marks, duty marks, and date marks, those little half obliterated marks on the backs of our silver spoons and forks, by which any silversmith is able to say when and where the article was assayed. The standard mark for gold for 22 carats, and silver lloz. 2dwts. is for England a lion passant ; for Edinburgh a thistle ; for Glasgow a lion rampant, for Ireland a harp crowned. Gold of 18 carats tine, a crown and figures 18, silver of the new standard, figure of Britannia. The duty mark is the head of the sovereign, and indicates that the duty has been paid. The date mark is a letter of the alphabet, which is changed every year, and differs in different companies. From 1702 to 1720 the record of the date mark in Newcastle was kept irregularly. These marks were, of course, put on only those articles which are up to the required standard, and nothing wan more interesting than to observe the processes to which they are subjected before they receive the authorised stamp. The assayer, we see from a black letter copy of William III. statutes, was sworn in according to a prescribed form of oath, which specifically ennumerates how he shall perform his duties. For example, he promises, "That I will touch no gold nor silver but what shall be of the goodness of, and according to the standard of this kingdom, which for the time being is, or shall be appointed by law for wrought plate ; and all such gold and silver as shall be brought to me to be touched I will truly set down in writing, and the same at all times as I shall be required, will duly and truly deliver again (except eight grains as aforesaid) and will true accounts make thereof when thereunto required by the wardens of the companies wherein I am chosen assayer; and that I will not assay make of things new wrought before they be marked with the mark of the maker or owner thereof and that I will not put into the aforesaid box any silver, but that silver which I shall have scraped and taken from the plate which I shall assay and pass for standard, so help my God."

Before and subsequent to their separate incorporation, the goldsmiths had rules and regulations pretty much akin to those of the other companies. No master was to have more than two apprentices, and the second conld only be taken after the first had served so many years. No apprentice was to marry before he had completed his term; no unbrotherly words were to be uttered at meetings, and absence from meetings entailed penalties. Judging from the few entries made in the books, fines did not fall so thick and heavy among the goldsmiths as they did among other companies, and the members, as their signatures show, appear to have been well educated commercially. The nature of their business prevented the interloping from which other guilds suffered, and they had no need to employ searchers for their own protection. They bought charcoal; they dined on head meeting days ; they entertained their friends and each other, and appear to have gone on very steadily and with such success that they furnished a mayor on three or four different occasions. As might be expected there were offenders, and we find that in the year 1730 two of the brethren, Mr. Makepeace and Mr. Bullman sustained great loss by their apprentices, Luke Killingworth Potts and Robert Ainsley, stealing some of their property and selling it, one of the purchasers being a brother who was heavily fined.

There being no Assay Hall nearer than York, and travelling in the last century being much more tedious and costly, the Newcastle assayer was employed by goldsmiths of other towns in the two counties. Mr. Samuel Thompson, in 1761, brought spoons and milk pots from Durham, and the chief goldsmiths between the Tweed and the Tees registered their punches or trade marks at the Hall. We observed that mugs and buckles furnished work for the assayer to a considerable extent during the latter half of the seventeenth century, and for three years Mr. James Crawford, whose shop waa at the Dead of the Side, in 1763 made nothing but buckles.

One of the principal firms in the town about that time was Langlands and Robertson. In 1784, the duty on silver was increased, and immediately before the change was made that firm had work stamped to the amount of 7,305 ounces. The articles included 100 coffee pots, 112 teapots, 190 tongs, 9 dozen table spoons, and a great number of tankards, pints, gills, and other measures. Some of the local goldsmith's businesses have been long established. That for instance carried on by Mr. Sewell in Dean Street, which was begun as far back as 1717, and in that time there have been only four changes in the firm. It was in the family of the Kirkups for fifty-seven years ; for fifty-two years it was carried on by Mr. Watson ; and for thirty-one by Mr. Sewell. Attempts have been made more than once to abolish the Assay Office, and to remove the entire business to London. Mr. James Robson is the last assay officer."

Source: Proceedings of the council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne for 1883-84; Being the Forty-Ninth Year After the Passing of the Municipal Reform Act.
Henry William Newton, Esquire, Mayor.
Thomas Nelson, Esquire, Sheriff.
Hill Motum Esquire, Town Clerk.


Trev.
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[dognose]

This interesting snippet of information was noted from the report of the monthly meeting of the Newcastle Society Of Antiquaries, held on the 29th May 1898.

The gift was announced from Mr. Walter Reid of a chemical balance, probably of early eighteenth century date, formerly belonging to the Goldsmiths' Company of Newcastle, and purchased by the donor at the sale of the effects of the Newcastle Assay Office. In a letter which accompanied the gift, Mr. C. L. Reid, a member of the society and one of the firm, said : " The ex-Assay Master, Mr. James Robson, told me he believed they were purchased at the time of, or shortly after, the restoration of powers of assay to the Goldsmiths' Company by the special Act of 1702; and his statement is corroborated by an entry in the minute books of the company, when, under date of May 2, 1729, there occurs this item amongst the disbursements: ' To a pair of scales for the use of the Company, £4-4s-0d.' Unfortunately the name of the maker is not stated, but they would probably be made by one of the goldsmiths, James Kirkup possibly, as he is mentioned in a former entry as repairing the scales for 11s. 6d."

Trev.
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[dognose]

I was delighted to discover that The Company of Goldsmiths of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is still in exsistance today. Following the closure of the assay office in 1884, the details of which are noted in an earlier post in this topic, the Company entrusted to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries to undertake the safe custody of the Company's possessions. The Company continued to their Annual Head Meetings up until the year 1911, following that meeting the next was not held until 1916 and it was a further twenty years before the next one in 1936.

The 1936 meeting, although a long time in coming, was perhaps the most important for the Company in the 20th century, for it was the catylist for the revival of the Company. The meeting was attended by just two members, William Wakenshaw and Norman Reid, the meeting confirmed the appointment of Norman Reid as Warden and by the end of that year they were joined by six new members and a further two members the following year, 1937.

Due to the abnormal conditions during WW2, few meetings were held, but following the end of hostillities in 1945, and the return of members of the Company who had been away on war service, the Company felt that the time was right to receive the return of their property and requested their wish to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, but to their dismay, no doubt, the minutes of the 1946 Annual Meeting record the return of only a very small part of their property, a letter from the Society stated that they could not trace the Company's property. Further periodic efforts to trace the missing items were unsucessful until 1973 when the Senior Steward, Cecil Hetherington reported the discovery, after eighty-five years, of twenty-one books and ledgers, two oak cases containing scales, a money bag, and over four hundred pieces of correspondence had been found at the Black Gate Museum at Newcastle. It was from this recovered material that Dr. Margaret A.V.Gill was able to use to help produce her great work 'A Directory of Newcastle Goldsmiths'.

In 1979, Cecil Hetherington retired as Senior Steward and he was succeeded by his son, Ken, with W. G. Frizzle as Junior Steward and J. T. Moule as Deputy.

Today the Newcastle Goldsmiths share their Annual Head Meetings with the Newcastle Colliers. The meetings are held on the 3rd Wednesday in April at the Merchant Adventurers Hall in The Guildhall, Newcastle. The present membership is twenty-three.

Trev.

[dognose]

Some examples of marking from the last period of the Newcastle Assay Office, six teaspoons, made by Reid & Sons:


















CJR (Christian John Reid) - Newcastle - 1882

Trev.