Jewelry Pearls

Amongst the more peaceful and picturesque activities of the goldsmiths was their devotion to St. Dunstan, who in his lifetime had certainly been a good patron of their craft and whom his Post-Conquest biographers credited both with a practical knowledge of their art and with the celebrated victory over a devil. In the saint’s honor the goldsmiths kept a light in the church of St. John Zacchary which remained the centre of the goldsmiths’ quarter up to the seventeenth century. On St. Dunstan’s Eve and twice on his day the members of the company went in procession to St. Paul’s in which was a chapel dedicated to their patron, and sustained themselves with a dinner in his honor at which was used a cup surmounted by his effigy. These functions came to an end at the Reformation, and in 1547 is recorded the destruction both of St. Dunstan’s Cup and of the silver gilt figure of the saint which adorned Goldsmiths’ Hall.

The history of the gild during the Renaissance was a checkered one. The latter part of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century saw a return of corporate prosperity but in 1627 the company was forced to sell plate to the value of £407 in order to pay its contribution to a forced loan which the King had levied on the City. During the Civil War period Goldsmiths’ Hall became the Parliament’s exchequer.

Besides its routine work of preserving the standard and purity of gold and silver work, the principal activity of the company during the Renaissance seems to have been a struggle to preserve the trade as far as possible in English hands and to limit the intrusion of foreigners-a matter to which we will have to recur later. In 1571 it was enacted that no craftsman might become a master until he had produced a ‘masterpiece’. The type of object to be made was not prescribed, as it was by some German gilds, and no piece made for this purpose has ever been identified. The custom had apparently fallen into disuse by 16°7 when it was reenacted with the professed aim of raising the standard of general proficiency amongst young craftsmen who, it was complained, were tending to specialize in the making of certain objects or the use of certain techniques and thus compared unfavorably with foreign workmen. It is unlikely that this order had more than a transient effect as the tendency to specialize certainly did not disappear.

Though the fortunes of individual goldsmiths could not remain unaffected by the political and religious changes, the times were certainly propitious. The prosperity of the London goldsmiths was shared by their provincial brethren whose gilds began to function with much greater efficiency than previously. The tendency for goldsmiths to seek prosperity outside the stricter limits of their profession became increasingly marked. Thus in 1589 John Spilman, a German, obtained a license to set up a paper-mill at Dartford, whilst in 16°9 Hugh Myddelton undertook the construction of the New River to supply London with water. The important part played by goldsmiths in the development of banking in this country was largely the unexpected result of the seizure by Charles Lin 1640 of the deposits of the precious metals which they and other merchants had been wont to store for safety in the Tower. This tyrannical act obliged goldsmiths henceforth to assume the responsibility for the keeping of their own reserves and forced them to construct strong-rooms in their houses. Before long they began to accept for safekeeping the money of their clients who at first paid for this privilege but soon began to receive interest in return for permitting the goldsmith the temporary use of their deposit.

When, with the Restoration, we enter the modern period in the history of English domestic silver we find the craft definitely fallen in popular esteem from its place amongst the major arts. This decline was for a time obscured by the important part played in the national affairs by the goldsmith bankers, but when the two professions became distinct in the eighteenth century the change in the status of the goldsmith is evident. The goldsmith, however great his artistic proficiency, had become no more than a superior craftsman or a prosperous tradesman. An increasing tendency towards specialization is visible both amongst firms and craftsmen, though much elasticity remained even to the end of our period. The decline in the social status of the goldsmith did not signify any decrease in the demand for his service and there can be no doubt of the general prosperity of the trade.

Another change which dates from the end of the seventeenth century is the gradual decline in the importance of the Goldsmiths’ Company in common with all the other City gilds. In 1679 the author of The Touchstone bewails the number of goldsmiths who chose to be members of other companies. The Goldsmiths’ Company, however, no longer excluded members of other crafts so that it is not surprising that it should gradually have come to take less and less interest in trade matters. It is not improbable that its prestige with members of the trade suffered at the close of the seventeenth century, from its inability to obtain from the Government any species of protection for the native craftsmen from the competition of the Huguenot goldsmiths who settled in this country in large numbers in the years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Though at first the Company returned sympathetic answers to those who petitioned them to take action against the invaders, it became obvious after the Revolution that it was useless to attempt to persuade the Government, which owed its existence to the deposition of a Catholic king, to take action against industrious foreigners who had been driven from their country because they were Protestants.

Even though the collection of the revenues of the Company’s estates would appear to have been the main interest of the members during the eighteenth century, we must not overlook the fact that at this same period the efficiency of the assay-office was greater than ever before.

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