Jewellery

Invented in 1948 and manufactured 'from the early 1950s, Splades or Splayds were a favourite gift for shower teas, weddings and Mothers’ Day in 1960s and 1970s Australia. We were vaguely aware that they might be an Australian innovation, but that wasn’t part of their advertising – they were promoted as a useful luxury item. When an English collector emailed us about them, we asked Yvonne Barber to dig deeper into the origin of the Splayd. A year’s research reveals their more than 70-year history, which touches many nostalgic aspects of our lives, especially if you have lived in Sydney.

A gold mourning brooch to commemorate the passing of John Hillas in 1847 at Bannaby (or Bunnaby) near Taralga in southern tablelands of NSW is typical of the early Victorian era and many similar pieces come up for sale today (plates 1-2)1. Black enamel surrounds a central glass-covered locket that most likely would have originally contained a lock of hair from the deceased. This is one of the earliest dated examples of jewellery worn in Australia. John Hillas was a farmer and grazier who died, aged 50, on 21 January 1847.

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.

Thomas Wright (c.1827–1912) may not be a well-known name today, but in early Geelong his shop was a mainstay. As with many other silversmiths and jewellers, little of his work survives, so his name rarely comes up in publications. The recent discovery of a Thomas Wright silver trowel in the Geelong Grammar School archives changes this; school archivist Geoff Laurenson now provides a fuller record of Wright’s life and career.

Australian colonial artists sought to use local materials and to appropriate local motifs in their artworks for several reasons: to reflect the Australian origin of their work, to distinguish it from the art of other nations, and to foster a stronger sense of connection with the country. Moreton Bay pearls are one of the new, local materials used in jewellery in the 1850s and 1860s, but the study of their use has been neglected up till now. David Bedford looks into the history of the use of Queensland’s Moreton Bay pearls and discusses examples used in jewellery made by leading Sydney and Brisbane jewellers.

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.

Len Peterson (1904–1981) began working at Adelaide jewellers S. Schlank & Co in 1919, and was closely associated with them until they closed in 1970. This is an edited version of his reminiscences, compiled between 1976 and 1980 for the Goldsmiths Guild of SA, giving an insight into the 20th-century Australian jewellery trade – its size, organisation, people, specialisations, products and techniques.

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.

George Richard Addis (1864–1937) is best known as one of Western Australia’s leading late 19th- and early 20th-century goldfields jewellers, whose Western Australian work has been documented by Dorothy Erickson.1 Many jewellers however worked in different colonies, and here Michel Reymond records for the first time Addis’s family background and his work in the eastern colonies.

In our May 2015 issue, Dianne Byrne identified a brooch presented in 1867 to Lady Bowen, wife of Queensland’s first Governor, in a photograph held in the National Library. Further detective work has revealed that the brooch is still held by Lady Bowen’s descendants in England. We illustrate it now for the first time.

The practice of presenting diplomatic gifts to dignitaries goes back to antiquity. As the much-admired wife of the governor of the colonies of Queensland, New Zealand and Victoria, Diamantina, Lady Bowen received some significant pieces of jewellery and metalwork. These gifts were frequently, and often fulsomely, described in contemporary newspapers. Dianne Byrne investigates some of her presentation pieces, through newspaper accounts and images.

Colonial Australian jewellery is rarely marked with the name of its maker or retailer. Perth jewellery dealer Trevor Hancock sticks his neck out and attributes several pieces to the German-born Adelaide jeweller C. E. Firnhaber, based on stylistic similarities of the works. All of them are illustrated here.

In 1970, Anne Schofield opened the first shop in Australia dealing exclusively in antique jewellery (in Queen Street, Woollahra, hence the book title) and has been dealing from there ever since. She is well-known from her appearances at fairs and in the media, for her support foreword which introduces the reader to her grandfather the artist. The difficulty of reproducing watercolours on gloss paper has been well met by the un-named Chinese printer and bookbinder: on placing four of the original watercolours held by the New England Regional Art Museum side by side with their reproductions printed in this book, the colour match was good, especially where there had been no light damage to the originals. Stephen Marshall has searched far and wide in assembling Young’s oeuvre, noting that new works lain hidden over many of collecting institutions and for her book co-written with Kevin Fahy, Australian Jewellery.

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.

This spectacular exhibition of jewellery spanning cultures and millennia is billed as the most ambitious jewellery exhibition the Powerhouse Museum (part of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) has ever staged. With 700 exhibits drawn from public and private collections across Australia, it takes several visits to appreciate the depth and breadth of the project, and further visits to absorb all that is on display and appreciate the global stories being told.

Collectors and Australiana Society members Graham and Elizabeth Cocks will be remembered by a collection of Arts and Crafts jewellery, generously given by their daughters to the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Powerhouse Museum.