Casket: H: 7.25 in / 18 cm | W: 10.75 in / 27 cm | D: 4 in / 10.5 cm
Case: H 10.5 in / 26.67 cm | W: 16 in / 40.64 cm | D: 10 in / 25.4 cm
An Elkington & Company Silver Gilt Presentation Casket
Hall Marked for Birmingham, 1891 and the maker; the casket, in the Victorian Gothic manner, with cluster columns at the angles, with fascias of lancet arches dressed with trefoils, and has a canted hinged top, bearing the Manchester Coat of arms enamelled on the finial, with the motif ‘Concilio et Labore’ (Diligence and Labour), opening to reveal a silk lined interior; with inscriptions dedicating the box to Alderman Abel Heywood, JP (qv), at his being granted 'Freedom of the City of Manchester', contained within a glazed case bearing similar inscriptions.
Birmingham, England, dated 1891.
Alderman Abel Heywood (1810-1893) a self-taught striver came from a poor family, possessing typical Victorian zeal to improve the lot of the working class, becoming a bookseller and publisher, notably of 'Penny Guides', directing workers to use the newly installed railways to improve their knowledge and vision; he appears to have been a firebrand, often at odds with authority on his chosen mission to educate the poor, and occasionally being jailed for his attempts to upset the staus quo; becoming Mayor of Manchester on two occasions (1862/3 & 1866/7); in this capacity he oversaw the construction of the Town Hall, and its’ clock bell is known as ‘Great Abel’, and his self-chosen motto ‘Ring out the False, Ring in the True’.
BiographyElkington and Company, formed by the brothers George and Henry, was founded in the 1830’s, after perfecting their newly patented method of electro plating in gold and silver, for which their first patent was granted in 1840. They exhibited at the European and British nineteenth century Great Exhibitions, and were given permission by Queen Victoria in 1868 to copy the collection of Royal Plate. Royal warrants were granted to them by, inter alia, Queen Victoria, Edward V11th, Queen Alexandra, and George Vth, and various European heads of states. In the early twentieth century, they supplied flatware to the White Star Line, whose ships included the Titanic.
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