Gold

Over a period of nearly 60 years from 1913 to 1970, about 200 outstanding Queensland school students, sons and daughters of employees of the Queensland Railways, were awarded gold medals valued at £3/10/, or the equivalent in scholastic books, in memory of Railway Commissioner J F Thallon (1847–1911). The awards were designed to recognise their academic achievements and to inspire the students.

Zealous colonists wanted those ‘at home’ to know how economically successful the British colonies in Australia had become. When gold was found in 1851, the Governor of New South Wales sent specimens of the first gold, in boxes made using selected colonial timbers by Irish-born cabinetmaker Andrew Lenehan, to their young Queen. The gifts arrived soon after the close of Prince Albert’s enormously successful ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations.’ Queen Victoria accepted the gifts which found their way to Osborne, the Queen’s summer house on the Isle of Wight. There they languished, the gold vanished, and their significance in the discovery of gold in Australia was apparently forgotten – until now.

What better way to celebrate a golden wedding than with a golden gift that symbolises affection for the recipients, their intimate connection over 50 years and carries their monograms? Dianne Byrne explores the background to a pair of gold napkin rings presented to James and Charlotte Cowlishaw in Brisbane in 1912. Though marked, so far the marks have eluded us as to their maker.

Dianne Byrne shares some of the outcomes of her postgraduate research into 19th-century presentation jewellery and metalwork made in Queensland or for Queenslanders, focusing here on a series of racing trophies made in the 1880s for the Tattersall’s Club Cup run at Eagle Farm racecourse. Two of these were made by the previously neglected Sydney silversmith Thomas Matthew Alcock, and designed in an international ‘Etruscan’ style, which contrasts with the familiar vernacular style incorporating overtly Australian motifs such as emus and kangaroos.

When you are dealing with precious metals, you want to know that what you have is what it is claimed to be. European countries instituted hallmarking systems to verify this, some of them operating for over 700 years. Silver expert Jolyon Warwick James discusses how Australia had its own hallmarking system, but it lasted for less than two decades.

Jillian Dwyer unravels the facts surrounding the place of William Lamborn in the triumvirate of Woollett, Wagner and Lamborn as Victorian gold rush jewellers, refines the dates of their operations, maps the emergence of Lamborn & Wagner as “one of the earliest firms of manufacturing jewellers in Australia,”1 and analyses their works stylistically.

John Hawkins speculates about the origin of a massive gold bracelet with cast and chased decoration, mounted with polished Queensland boulder opal, and its possible connections with the colourful discoverers and promoters of late 19th century and early 20th century Queensland opals.

Jewellery dealer Anne Schofield, who performed the official opening of the exhibition Bling: 19th century goldfields jewellery at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Ballarat on 16 April, kindly let us publish her address.

Jewellers William Lamborn, Leopold Wagner and Samuel Woollett all arrived at Melbourne in the first few years after the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851. Recent research has uncovered new information on these jewellers and their firms – Wagner & Woollett, Lamborn & Wagner and Woollett & Hewitt. The new information builds on the pioneering work and sources referred to in Anne Schofield & Kevin Fahy’s Australian Jewellery 19th and Early 20th Century, and in Kenneth Cavill, Graham Cocks & Jack Grace’s Australian Jewellers Gold & Silversmiths Makers & Marks.