TEA CADDY
I must apologise for having omitted to introduce a dear old friend earlier but I cannot let you complete this course without making her acquaintance. Her well preserved appearance coated with a rosewood overall, the rings she carries at her sides and her dainty claw feet must claim your notice. She has no hesitation in allowing you at any time to admire her tight fitting combinations which contain her black and green teas. I have lifted her covering to reveal her velvet lining which has stood the wear, without a tear, for more years than you will credit her with. With what tender care she has nurtured her Waterford Glass Sugar bowl now raised with her fittings for your inspection. She has never lost sight of her little Sheffield Plate spoon which has caddied for her on every occasion when her numerous admirers needed the cup which soothes. Taking all her good qualities into consideration we must pardon her desire to have her photo taken too. ([Plate XIV])
I appear to have touched on nearly all the Furniture objects I have found it convenient to photograph indoors, and as I am not stocktaking or compiling a catalogue we will pass on to the second course.
Dwarf Chest of Drawers with Hepplewhite Mirror, 2 ft. 6 in. high, 2 ft. 3 in. wide.
Plate XVI.
Oak Chest with Oak Cupboard ([see p. 31]).
Plate XVII.
SECOND COURSE
Old Pewter
The First Pint—Progress—The Total—Congratulation—My Irish Friend—Sacks Full—Mistaken Identity—A Warm Time—Marks—Excise Stamping—First Act, 1826—Candlesticks—Church Pewter—The Basin—Faked Pewter—Plates and Dishes—Irish and Scotch—Tappit Hens—Whisky Stoups—Britannia Metal Enquiry—Cleaning—The Tinsmith—The “Odamifino”—The Pewter Pot—The Mystery Piece.
There is an old axiom that “a man is no good unless he has a hobby,” but some of my friends say I have been no use since I took up the collection of old pewter. Many may wonder what induced a busy man to go to the trouble of getting together a collection like that shown in the photographs. It all arose through my rummaging in a broker’s while waiting for a friend who was looking for old books, and finding a mug which was dirty and black with neglect but inscribed, “Canteen, 70th Regiment.” My curiosity was aroused, and I became the owner. On submitting this to a tinsmith it was pronounced to be old pewter, and from the time it was polished, fifteen years ago, I have been on the look out for more. The experience I soon gained taught me that the collectors of old pewter mainly belonged to that class with whom money is little object, and that what they strived to obtain were very old, unique pieces, communion vessels and historical specimens, quite out of the reach of an ordinary householder. This I recognised when visiting an exhibition of Old Pewter at Clifford’s Inn Hall in 1908.
It must be patent to any reader that if those were the only articles of interest that were worth securing for exhibition purposes then the rest of the old stuff occasionally turning up might as well go to the melting pot for solder, the fate of so many tons in years gone by, and even now men in ignorance of the antique value of old pewter are daily melting specimens which would be fit to decorate many a shelf. I have given much attention to British pewter; the old associations appeal to my imagination, and I have never been drawn to foreign specimens.
If you suffer from a good memory you will recall that Wolsey said to Cromwell, “Take an inventory of all I possess.” Now if he had as many pieces in such variety of any one line as I have of old pewter, then Wolsey was giving Cromwell something to do, and as pewter was knocking about in those days he may have had a fair collection. I cannot pretend to describe many of my pieces, but I present the reader with a selection of photographs, and I hope these will, to a certain extent, speak for themselves; anyway they give a good idea of the effect a large collection of pewter has on the home, and on the patience of those who attend to the dusting. Space has not permitted me actually to show in my rooms or have in the house more than 500 pieces, but I have, as opportunity occurred, kept on improving the specimens on view, and I could best do this by letting the stuff come in whenever I heard of any likely lots, out of which I selected what I fancied, getting rid of duplicates, pieces I did not care for, and sending modern and worthless things to be melted.
So far back as 1908—since when my collection has much improved—I had the pleasure of exchanging photographs with a great connoisseur of old pewter, and I was very gratified when he wrote to me as follows:
“There is so much that is worse than valueless in most collections; so much unnecessary repetition, that large collections become irritatingly monotonous. Although your pieces are often repeated, the repetition represents always an interesting variation; and this feature contributes the element of evolution which is always interesting, and without which no collection is complete or satisfactory. I congratulate you, therefore, upon your possessions, and think you have done remarkably well during the short time. Could you let me see the two ‘salts’ marked on the photo?”
I sent the two “salts,” and he remarked, “The little one is particularly interesting as it is a reversible one, the only specimen I have seen.”
That special “salt” is the queer looking little thing in the centre of the salt group, and I am giving it more space than its size or appearance seem to warrant. It was first caught sight of in a shop at Leeds, where a broker had it filled with black varnish into which he was dipping his brush, while he was giving an artistic touch-up to some of his stock. The hunter spotted pewter, and after some little chaff was told he could have it if he would bring something that would do for holding the varnish; this he bought at a shop not far off, and the change was soon effected. It is a curious specimen, for whichever way it stands it will hold the salt, but in its present position it will hold more than twice as much as when it is placed the other way uppermost.
The results of my hunting and advertising not keeping pace with my ambition for more, I secured the assistance of a friend in Ireland, who proved to be a friend indeed. He had a dog which was constantly jumping on the sofa and chairs, so he called him Zacchæus because “he was everlastingly telling him to come down.”
Have you heard of “Phil the Fluter”? I had not until I heard our friend warble of the wonderful effect the execution of that phenomenal flautist produced upon his hearers, but I imagine the charm attained would be as comparable with that of my Irish friend as modern is to antique, while he has a tongue that would “wile a bird off a tree.” Like Father O’Flynn he’d “a wonderful way wid him, the young and ould sinners were wishful to trade wid him.” I am not digressing but adorning the tale to point the moral. With his cheery manner he succeeded all the time to such an extent that I had to wire him “Hold! enough.” Later when other collectors sought my help to get them Irish measures he reported “Too late, the Jews have been round and bought up the lot. Why did you stop me just when I was getting my hand in?” Explanatory of my reason for cancelling my early instructions, let me give the following. I was impatient to make a show, so told him to buy all the pewter plates he came across. A few days after seventy arrived in two filthy dirty sacks, the state of which corresponded fairly well with the appearance of their contents. He apologised later for the condition of the sacks which “he had borrowed from a place where they had just skinned a dead horse.” Some of these plates bore marks and a few others crests, but as the former owners had a strange custom of polishing the backs with sand, the marks were mostly rubbed off, and as they never cleaned the fronts, my getting that consignment into exhibition form required some trouble and expense, but as the Tommy said after getting C.B. for being absent without leave, “It was worth it.”
Referring to this consignment and to the sacks in conversation later he expressed no wonder at my people complaining when they and their contents were dumped in the washhouse, as he thought they were a trifle high after he found the boots of the hotel, where he had to spend a night, had put them in his bedroom! Worse than that, however, happened the following day. He had left them at one end of the station platform with a porter, that they might go in the guard’s van, while he went to another part of the train and joined some friends. He had just got seated when the porter who must have followed him with the sacks on a truck, opened the door and enquired, “Will your honour have these suit cases in the carriage wid yer?”
The miscellaneous articles which arrived at frequent intervals were wellnigh confusing, and it kept me busy finding out what many of them were really for, but when I found a pewter harp with a screw attached I was so bewildered I wrote and asked him what on earth this harp was out of, and he settled my mind by replying, “I thought it had come down from heaven.”
On one occasion I saw quite a number of pieces in a shop where I had now and then found an odd one, and after making a few purchases enquired the reason for this amazing influx, when I was informed, “You see it’s this way; there’s a lady who’s got a husband who’s been collecting pewter until she’s got fed up, so as he’s gone off for a few days she asked me to call and take the lot away, as she is not going to have any more of the dirty stuff about.” Sequel—they lived happily ever after.
For a time I adopted the practice of getting men I knew to save pewter for me, and, as my rambles permitted, calling on them periodically. On one occasion I was looking through the window of a marine store at —— when I noticed something I was on the look-out for. I entered, and enquired, “How about the pewter?” The old fellow replied:
“Hello, you’ve come at last? It must be six months since you asked me to save any bits that came in.”
“Oh, well,” I said, “it’s better late than never,” and paid him what he asked.
I had never visited the place before. Reader, I hope you have never been the victim of mistaken identity.
You will recollect the story I told of my friend who brought me my first eight-day clock. In talking over reminiscences lately, I asked if he remembered assisting me to get pewter. Instantly he replied, “Remember! I shall remember it to my dying day. I was at Sneinton (Nottingham), and I asked a marine store man had he any pewter. He said, ‘Not here, but I have any amount at my Radford place.’ Now Radford was out of my way, but I thought I would do you a good turn, so I padded there, about twenty minutes’ walk—it was warm. When I got there, I was offered about half a hundredweight of zinc that I should think had for a few years previously been fastened on a pub counter. Of course I had to walk back, and I never felt so hot in my life.”