Early Sydney silver flatware
Four early Australian silver flatware items – two spoons and two forks – engraved with the three initials ‘WEB’ present a challenge warranting research. Whose engraved initials (WEB) are they and when were the items made and engraved? Christine Erratt offers an answer. Four flatware1items with the owners’ initials WEB, held in two private collections (plates 1–6), bear the punch marks of Sydney silversmith Alexander Dick (1799-1843), whose shop operated in Sydney from soon after his arrival in 1824 until 1846. His widow Charlotte closed the business in 1846, with Samuel Lyons auctioning the remaining stockon 20–21 April; on 12 December she married music shop owner Francis Ellard.
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