A magnificent service of plate, costing 6000 guineas, and paid for by private subscription, was presented on the 5th ult. to the Manchester Corporation by Mr. Alderman Curtis, the ex-Mayor, during whose mayoralty the subscription was promoted. It will be used at the banquet in celebration of the opening of the new Town Hall. The plate has been manufactured by Messrs. Elkington & Co., and consists of a silver gilt and oxide dessert service, early English in design. It comprises a plateau 14 feet long, and bearing the enamelled arms of Lancaster, the Bishop of Manchester, Mr. Alderman Curtis, the Royal arms, and 20 shields containing the names of the principal incorporated towns of the county. Between the shields are engraved the names of the past mayors of the city, and in two large shields are the names of the subscribers. There are also three large oval centre pieces, ten tall fruit stands, twenty-four compotiers, two thirteen-light candelabra, ten nine-light candelabra, and twenty-four ice dishes, all en suite.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 5th October 1877
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Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Elkington & Co., Ltd. - London - 1897
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
In glancing through the various windows of the trade it has often suggested itself to us that we are not so patriotic as the bootmaker in the legend. To him there was "nothing like leather," but we do not say " nothing like silver," or " nothing like metal." One is often pained to see a glass displaying the most expensive articles with rough unpolished edges. Even when a shelf is polished at its edges it is often anything but an ornament, and all sorts of things have been tried to remedy this evil. Perhaps the best thing brought out is that of Messrs. Elkington, who employ a metal gallery edging about 1¼in. wide. This can be made in either bronze or oxydised silver. It gives a remarkable finish to a window, with an exceptionally good appearance.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st February 1894
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Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st February 1894
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Just Like Those Welshmen.–Of all the wedding gifts to the Duke and Duchess of York (the Prince and Princess of Wales of the future) probably nothing is so imposing as the magnificent present from gallant little Wales which has recently been made. It is all Welsh except the work ; the subjects, the conception, the very gold and silver being obtained from the mines of the Principality. It consists of a huge jardiniere of elegant conception, in which there are four panels representing Welsh castles. This stands upon a charming plateau with elevated centre, with projecting ends for the reception of beautiful equestrian figures. The border of the plateau draws its inspiration from the rose of York and rose leaves. The centre is enriched by beautiful panels, illustrating scenes from Welsh history, separated by portraits. At the corners sit superbly modelled figures, the Welsh bard forming a very suitable subject for the purpose. There is a large quantity of 18-carat gold employed in its construction, and the enamelling puts on a very rich finish to the 3,000 oz. of metal employed. The total length is 5ft. 6in., the height 2ft. 6in., and the width 3ft. It was manufactured by Elkington and Co., London and Birmingham.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st February 1894
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Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st February 1894
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
The late Mr. Morel Labeuil
Some of the achievements of the late Mr. Morel Ladeuil, whose death took place recently, are recorded in an American contemporary, from which we cull the following : With few advantages in the way of education, and commencing life as a humble workman, he succeeded in gaining a world-wide reputation as one of the greatest artists of his age. Of the early life of this gifted man but little is known beyond the facts that he was a native of Clermont- Ferrand, France, and a pupil of one Antoine Vecht. This Vecht was a silversmith, whose artistic genius caused him to be regarded as a successor to Benvenuto Cellini. He first made his appearance in Paris in the early part of the present century as an imitator of Cellini, and was thence taken to London by John Mortimer, one of the founders of the well-known house of Storr & Mortimer.
The small vases and cups produced by Vecht as the work of Cellini, and sold at a great price by the antique dealers of Paris, are charming–indeed, in the opinion of some judges, they are the finest work of this artist. In England he was enabled to work on original conceptions, which, while they dignified silver work and raised it to the level of art, never paid the producers except in fame or as an advertisement. He had many pupils and founded a school. Among his pupils were the well-known brothers A. F. and J. T. Fanniere, of Paris, whose works in silver have been much admired wherever exhibited.
Whether Ladeuil was connected with Vecht in Paris is not known for certain, although there is an impression prevailing that he was. It is, however, known that he was acting as an assistant to him in London, his duties being at first confined to mere mechanical work. Vecht, however, seems to have been attracted by his young compatriot's brightness and intelligence, and gave him instructions in the higher brandies of silversmithing. He was an apt and willing pupil, and made such rapid progress, that in a very short time he was the equal of his master in the ability to produce designs which were original, striking
and artistic.
The work of the young artist soon attracted the attention of Messrs. Elkington & Co., London, one of the oldest-established and best known firms of silversmiths in the world, and he was engaged by them as a member of their staff of designers, which contained some of the best artists of Europe, under the leadership of the celebrated Willm.
Here he worked enthusiastically but quietly for a number of years, unknown to fame, but thoroughly appreciated by his employers, and producing many beautiful designs.
Shortly after the opening of the great London International Exhibition of 1862, Ladeuil woke up one morning to find himself famous. Among the articles of silverware exhibited by Elkington & Co., was a silver table or tazza in repoussee work, the exquisite beauty of which caused many enquiries as to the designer. His identity was not long a secret, and from that time his position in the world of art was assured.
The design of this table was called "Night and Dreamland." At the foot of it, reclining on a bank, were three figures sleeping –a minstrel, a soldier and a farmer–who are under the influence of a goddess, standing above them and represented in the act of strewing poppies around. The circle of figures on the surface of the table is supposed to embody the dreams of these sleepers. This exquisite piece of work gained for Ladeuil the first prize for silverware at the exhibition, and it was afterwards purchased by the town of Birmingham as a wedding present for the Princess of Wales.
At the same exhibition were shown a tankard, vase and dish, handsomely chased by Ladeuil, which excited much favourable comment, and added not a little to his reputation as an artist.
At every great exhibition of Europe held since that time, productions of Morel Ladeuil's artistic brain and cunning hand have excited the admiration of connoisseurs and won for him fresh renown. His Helicon vase was exhibited by Messrs. Elkington & Co. at London, Paris and Vienna, winning gold medals in each of these capitals.
The greatest work of his life, however, was the Milton shield, exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867. There is a general impression that it was the best work shown at that most memorable exhibition. It gained for Ladeuil a gold medal, and while he had occupied a high place previously, this work elevated him in the ranks of the great artists of the epoch.
The Milton shield is one of the grandest works of its class that has ever been produced in any age or country. In conception it is admirable and in execution perfect. It is of repousse'e work in iron and silver, with damascene work (or engraved ornament inlaid with gold wire) introduced. The designs are intended to illustrate the chief incidents of Milton's poem, " Paradise Lost." The circular plaque in the centre represents Adam and Eve in Paradise ; on the left are depicted the hosts of heaven, and on the right the fall of the rebellious angels. Below is St. Michael's victory over Satan.
Similar in style to the Milton shield was Ladeuil's Bunynn shield. It, too, was of iron and silver repousse'e work, and represented the history of Christian as related in the " Pilgrim's Progress." This work not only gained for the artist another gold medal, but also a prize which, in the eyes of a Frenchman, is the greatest that can be obtained–the cross of the Legion of Honour.
Ladeuil continued in the employ of Messrs Elkington & Co., each year seeing new and wonderful creations produced by his master hand, until 1884, when the long years of laborious application to his beloved work had so undermined his health that he resigned his position and went to Boulogne, where he passed the remainder of his days in retirement. Even here, however, he could not altogether abandon the work which had become a second nature to him, and continued to labour in a desultory manner whenever his health would permit, the result being three bas-relievos, which will be exhibited at this year's Salon. They will doubtless not be unworthy of the creator of such masterpieces as the Princess of Wales' tazza, the Helicon vase and the Milton shield.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 2nd July 1888
Trev.
Some of the achievements of the late Mr. Morel Ladeuil, whose death took place recently, are recorded in an American contemporary, from which we cull the following : With few advantages in the way of education, and commencing life as a humble workman, he succeeded in gaining a world-wide reputation as one of the greatest artists of his age. Of the early life of this gifted man but little is known beyond the facts that he was a native of Clermont- Ferrand, France, and a pupil of one Antoine Vecht. This Vecht was a silversmith, whose artistic genius caused him to be regarded as a successor to Benvenuto Cellini. He first made his appearance in Paris in the early part of the present century as an imitator of Cellini, and was thence taken to London by John Mortimer, one of the founders of the well-known house of Storr & Mortimer.
The small vases and cups produced by Vecht as the work of Cellini, and sold at a great price by the antique dealers of Paris, are charming–indeed, in the opinion of some judges, they are the finest work of this artist. In England he was enabled to work on original conceptions, which, while they dignified silver work and raised it to the level of art, never paid the producers except in fame or as an advertisement. He had many pupils and founded a school. Among his pupils were the well-known brothers A. F. and J. T. Fanniere, of Paris, whose works in silver have been much admired wherever exhibited.
Whether Ladeuil was connected with Vecht in Paris is not known for certain, although there is an impression prevailing that he was. It is, however, known that he was acting as an assistant to him in London, his duties being at first confined to mere mechanical work. Vecht, however, seems to have been attracted by his young compatriot's brightness and intelligence, and gave him instructions in the higher brandies of silversmithing. He was an apt and willing pupil, and made such rapid progress, that in a very short time he was the equal of his master in the ability to produce designs which were original, striking
and artistic.
The work of the young artist soon attracted the attention of Messrs. Elkington & Co., London, one of the oldest-established and best known firms of silversmiths in the world, and he was engaged by them as a member of their staff of designers, which contained some of the best artists of Europe, under the leadership of the celebrated Willm.
Here he worked enthusiastically but quietly for a number of years, unknown to fame, but thoroughly appreciated by his employers, and producing many beautiful designs.
Shortly after the opening of the great London International Exhibition of 1862, Ladeuil woke up one morning to find himself famous. Among the articles of silverware exhibited by Elkington & Co., was a silver table or tazza in repoussee work, the exquisite beauty of which caused many enquiries as to the designer. His identity was not long a secret, and from that time his position in the world of art was assured.
The design of this table was called "Night and Dreamland." At the foot of it, reclining on a bank, were three figures sleeping –a minstrel, a soldier and a farmer–who are under the influence of a goddess, standing above them and represented in the act of strewing poppies around. The circle of figures on the surface of the table is supposed to embody the dreams of these sleepers. This exquisite piece of work gained for Ladeuil the first prize for silverware at the exhibition, and it was afterwards purchased by the town of Birmingham as a wedding present for the Princess of Wales.
At the same exhibition were shown a tankard, vase and dish, handsomely chased by Ladeuil, which excited much favourable comment, and added not a little to his reputation as an artist.
At every great exhibition of Europe held since that time, productions of Morel Ladeuil's artistic brain and cunning hand have excited the admiration of connoisseurs and won for him fresh renown. His Helicon vase was exhibited by Messrs. Elkington & Co. at London, Paris and Vienna, winning gold medals in each of these capitals.
The greatest work of his life, however, was the Milton shield, exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867. There is a general impression that it was the best work shown at that most memorable exhibition. It gained for Ladeuil a gold medal, and while he had occupied a high place previously, this work elevated him in the ranks of the great artists of the epoch.
The Milton shield is one of the grandest works of its class that has ever been produced in any age or country. In conception it is admirable and in execution perfect. It is of repousse'e work in iron and silver, with damascene work (or engraved ornament inlaid with gold wire) introduced. The designs are intended to illustrate the chief incidents of Milton's poem, " Paradise Lost." The circular plaque in the centre represents Adam and Eve in Paradise ; on the left are depicted the hosts of heaven, and on the right the fall of the rebellious angels. Below is St. Michael's victory over Satan.
Similar in style to the Milton shield was Ladeuil's Bunynn shield. It, too, was of iron and silver repousse'e work, and represented the history of Christian as related in the " Pilgrim's Progress." This work not only gained for the artist another gold medal, but also a prize which, in the eyes of a Frenchman, is the greatest that can be obtained–the cross of the Legion of Honour.
Ladeuil continued in the employ of Messrs Elkington & Co., each year seeing new and wonderful creations produced by his master hand, until 1884, when the long years of laborious application to his beloved work had so undermined his health that he resigned his position and went to Boulogne, where he passed the remainder of his days in retirement. Even here, however, he could not altogether abandon the work which had become a second nature to him, and continued to labour in a desultory manner whenever his health would permit, the result being three bas-relievos, which will be exhibited at this year's Salon. They will doubtless not be unworthy of the creator of such masterpieces as the Princess of Wales' tazza, the Helicon vase and the Milton shield.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 2nd July 1888
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
A number of competitive designs and models for the gift from the Corporation of the City of London to the Prince and Princess of Wales on the occasion of their silver wedding have, says 'The Standard', been submitted to the authorities, who have selected that of Messrs. Elkington & Co., (Limited). They have been ordered to produce a model in silver of the Imperial Institute, at a cost of five hundred guineas, which it is intended to present to the Princess of Wales in March next.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st March 1888
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Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st March 1888
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
An 1892 advertisement from Elkington's Sydney branch at 384, George Street:
Elkington and Co., Ltd. - Sydney - 1892
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Elkington and Co., Ltd. - Sydney - 1892
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
A 1908 advertisement from Elkington's Glasgow branch at 84, St. Vincent Street:
Elkington & Co.Ltd. - Glasgow - 1908
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Elkington & Co.Ltd. - Glasgow - 1908
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
International Exhibition, Glasgow, 1888
.............Immediately adjoining this exhibit is that of Messrs. Elkington & Co. In point of size it seems to be even larger than its neighbour. We approached it with interest and expectant pleasure, for the name of Elkington has been one to conjure with in the past, and their efforts have been powerful toward the object –originally the primitive one in all trade–of bringing the producer and the consumer–the manufacturer and the public – together. (For this no doubt many do not thank them.) Their name has been a household one for years, and the pseudonym for quality. They have employed the best artistic talent obtainable anywhere, and whenever we contemplated–what may indeed be but a dream–the establishment of an English School of Art Plate, it is to them our thoughts have turned. In their exhibit in Glasgow we look for something that would point to such a result. We search, but we find it not.
They show, however, reproductions and, in some instances, the originals of some of their triumphs in the silversmith's art : the International Trophy ; The Goodwood Cup for 1881 ; a hunting horn, supported by a bounding stag, which is worthy of prolonged examination : also electrotypes of the famous Milton and Bunyan Shields.
They have specimens of all styles, from the antique to the naturalistic. Consequently we have side by side works of the most beautiful and the most unseemly character–the most charming and the most incongruous.
Some beautiful specimens of damascened work in the form of caskets and many exquisitely chased plaques form some of the more interesting portions of their exhibit. Besides these of course there are the more usual and what might be called the more commonplace articles of a silversmith's exhibit–tea-sets, trays, bowls, &c, the number and variety of which preclude separate mention.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st October 1888
Trev.
.............Immediately adjoining this exhibit is that of Messrs. Elkington & Co. In point of size it seems to be even larger than its neighbour. We approached it with interest and expectant pleasure, for the name of Elkington has been one to conjure with in the past, and their efforts have been powerful toward the object –originally the primitive one in all trade–of bringing the producer and the consumer–the manufacturer and the public – together. (For this no doubt many do not thank them.) Their name has been a household one for years, and the pseudonym for quality. They have employed the best artistic talent obtainable anywhere, and whenever we contemplated–what may indeed be but a dream–the establishment of an English School of Art Plate, it is to them our thoughts have turned. In their exhibit in Glasgow we look for something that would point to such a result. We search, but we find it not.
They show, however, reproductions and, in some instances, the originals of some of their triumphs in the silversmith's art : the International Trophy ; The Goodwood Cup for 1881 ; a hunting horn, supported by a bounding stag, which is worthy of prolonged examination : also electrotypes of the famous Milton and Bunyan Shields.
They have specimens of all styles, from the antique to the naturalistic. Consequently we have side by side works of the most beautiful and the most unseemly character–the most charming and the most incongruous.
Some beautiful specimens of damascened work in the form of caskets and many exquisitely chased plaques form some of the more interesting portions of their exhibit. Besides these of course there are the more usual and what might be called the more commonplace articles of a silversmith's exhibit–tea-sets, trays, bowls, &c, the number and variety of which preclude separate mention.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st October 1888
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Death of Sir Josiah Mason
The career of Sir Josiah Mason, whose death recently took place at Birmingham at the age of 86, was one of the most remarkable on record; for, starting as a journeyman shoemaker, and subsequently becoming a hawker of teacakes made by his wife, he afterwards amassed an immense fortune, and was enabled during his lifetime to bestow upon Birmingham, his adopted town, benefactions exceeding 400,000l. in value. He was practically the founder of one of the greatest industries of Birmingham– steel pen-making, while the electroplating patents of Elkington were immensely developed by Mason, who became Elkington‘s partner. Another successful undertaking was the working of a patent for vulcanising india-rubber articles, which was ultimately disposed of to Mackintosh, of Manchester, for 80,000l.
Source: The British Trade Journal and Export World - 1st July 1881
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The career of Sir Josiah Mason, whose death recently took place at Birmingham at the age of 86, was one of the most remarkable on record; for, starting as a journeyman shoemaker, and subsequently becoming a hawker of teacakes made by his wife, he afterwards amassed an immense fortune, and was enabled during his lifetime to bestow upon Birmingham, his adopted town, benefactions exceeding 400,000l. in value. He was practically the founder of one of the greatest industries of Birmingham– steel pen-making, while the electroplating patents of Elkington were immensely developed by Mason, who became Elkington‘s partner. Another successful undertaking was the working of a patent for vulcanising india-rubber articles, which was ultimately disposed of to Mackintosh, of Manchester, for 80,000l.
Source: The British Trade Journal and Export World - 1st July 1881
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Elkington & Co. - London - 1848
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
MESSRS. ELKINGTONS WORKS OF ART AT THE PHILADELPHIA EXHIBITION
Among the leading and most prominent exhibitors at the Philadelphia Exhibition will be Messrs. Elkington & Co., whose contribution will be of an aggregate value of about 100,000l. They are having assigned to them a place of honour in the centre of the English department, where their show cases will occupy a fourth of the entire space beneath the tower ; and the collection will not only be one of the largest, but probably the finest and most important of the kind ever exhibited, surpassing even the magnificent display which was made by the same firm at the Vienna Exhibition, and some of the plate which they will show to the Americans is pronounced by the most experienced judges to be the finest ever produced. The articles form a deeply interesting exhibition of themselves, and include two silver dessert services, each of the value of two thousand guineas, though one of them consists only of three pieces. We may state that, large as will be Messrs. Elkington's contribution to the Exhibition, it will be confined entirely to what are essentially works of the highest art, for the firm are not troubling themselves to send out any of the ordinary domestic articles of silver and electro-plate, such as dishes, forks, spoons, &c. They prefer rather to invite the attention of the world to specimens of highly-decorative work, all of which have been produced at their own manufactory, most of them being designed and all executed under the personal superintendence of their chief artistes, M. Morel-Ladeuil and M. Willms. The articles selected for exhibition consist, for the most part, of decorative dessert services, vases, shields, mirror frames, plaques, and tazzi.
The collection may be described as illustrating the three principal classes of repousse work in silver, enriched by gilding and enamelling; repousse work in iron, decorated by inlaid and damascened patterns in gold and silver ; and champ levee and cloisonnee enamels. In all of these departments considerable progress has been made since the Vienna Exhibition ; but in none of them is it more noticeable than in the cloisonnee enamels, which far surpass the Chinese or the modern Japanese examples of the art, and even approach very nearly to the exquisite beauty of the old Japanese. It forms an imperishable picture, capable of resisting everything but intense heat and great violence, and of a material which lends itself with especial readiness to rich and harmonious colouring, while the delicate bright metallic lines bordering the cloisons form a pleasing contrast to the comparative dulness of the opaque glass. The perfection to which Messrs. Elktngton & Co. have now brought the art has only been reached by numerous experiments, and many and costly failures ; but the work which is now produced leaves little to be desired. It may be mentioned as a special feature of enamel work that it does not admit of being copied or reproduced by any other method, and hence that it can never lose its rare and costly character. The champ levee enamel, which is chiefly used for the decorative enrichment of metal work, is of a more simple kind.
The repousse work in iron is of especial interest ; and, although extremely costly originally, it differs from enamel in this–that an imitation of it can be produced at a moderate price. The artist commences with a dish or other article of fine wrought iron, and on the upper surface of this he engraves the outline of a pattern. The dish is then reversed, and is beaten at the back by punchers and hammers until the traced pattern is rendered concave at the back, and correspondingly convex on the upper surface. The prominences thus produced are finished in detail by chasing, and when this is done the dish is ready to receive further decoration by inlaying, or by damascening. For the inlaying, grooves corresponding to the lines of a traced pattern are cut in the iron, and these grooves are filled by gold or silver wire, which is driven into them by punches, and then finished upon the surface as may be required. Damascening is a slightly different process, which somewhat resembles embroidery, and leaves the hand of the artist free to follow his fancy, and to produce any flowing outlines that he may desire. A very exquisite specimen of this work is an oval mirror frame, damascened with birds and arabesques. The arabesques are simply burnished, but the birds are sculptured until the outline of almost every feather may be traced. Messrs. Elkington exhibit some copies of this kind of work, of which their well-known " Milton shield," from the original at South Kensington, is an example ; but they only copy originals which are in museums, or otherwise public property ; they include the copyright of an original repousse work in the price charged to any private purchaser. The most remarkable examples sent to America are a dessert service, a tazza, and some dishes or plaques. The dessert service is in iron repousse, inlaid with gold and silver, relieved by exquisitely-chased panels of oxidized silver, and supported on crystal pillars, delicately engraved with incised and gilt ornamentation. The tazza is in repousse silver, with a border of iron damascened and incrusted with gold, and the principal subject (which has occupied M. Morel-Ladeuil, the artist of the Helicon vase and of the Milton shield, two years in execution) is a Pompeiian lady at her toilet, attended by her slaves. The relief is so high that the figures seem almost as if undercut, and the work is regarded altogether as one of the finest specimens ever executed. A smaller plaque, by the same artist, is an allegorical group representing Charity, and another is a farmyard composition, in which a child is frightened by some clamorous poultry.
The decorative dinner and dessert services are of various styles – Egyptian, Grecian, Pompeiian, Romano-Greek, and Renaissance. They are made either in massive silver or in copper electro-plated, in either case relieved by gilding ; and two complete services, consisting of centre-pieces, plateaux, candelabra, and fruit stands, are richly decorated with champ levee enamelling, and panelled with gold.
The cloisonnee enamels, which are included in this collection, are all, we need scarcely say, exceedingly fine. M. Morel-Ladeuil's exquisite tazza, the magnificent dessert services, and the Venetian mirror designed by M. Willms, with its very beautiful framework of solid silver, inlaid with gold, are beyond description. In the production of these splendid works Messrs. Elkington must stand unrivalled, and they will even add to their great reputation by the valuable collection of articles sent to the American Exhibition, and which are of a most elaborate description.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 5th May 1876
Trev.
Among the leading and most prominent exhibitors at the Philadelphia Exhibition will be Messrs. Elkington & Co., whose contribution will be of an aggregate value of about 100,000l. They are having assigned to them a place of honour in the centre of the English department, where their show cases will occupy a fourth of the entire space beneath the tower ; and the collection will not only be one of the largest, but probably the finest and most important of the kind ever exhibited, surpassing even the magnificent display which was made by the same firm at the Vienna Exhibition, and some of the plate which they will show to the Americans is pronounced by the most experienced judges to be the finest ever produced. The articles form a deeply interesting exhibition of themselves, and include two silver dessert services, each of the value of two thousand guineas, though one of them consists only of three pieces. We may state that, large as will be Messrs. Elkington's contribution to the Exhibition, it will be confined entirely to what are essentially works of the highest art, for the firm are not troubling themselves to send out any of the ordinary domestic articles of silver and electro-plate, such as dishes, forks, spoons, &c. They prefer rather to invite the attention of the world to specimens of highly-decorative work, all of which have been produced at their own manufactory, most of them being designed and all executed under the personal superintendence of their chief artistes, M. Morel-Ladeuil and M. Willms. The articles selected for exhibition consist, for the most part, of decorative dessert services, vases, shields, mirror frames, plaques, and tazzi.
The collection may be described as illustrating the three principal classes of repousse work in silver, enriched by gilding and enamelling; repousse work in iron, decorated by inlaid and damascened patterns in gold and silver ; and champ levee and cloisonnee enamels. In all of these departments considerable progress has been made since the Vienna Exhibition ; but in none of them is it more noticeable than in the cloisonnee enamels, which far surpass the Chinese or the modern Japanese examples of the art, and even approach very nearly to the exquisite beauty of the old Japanese. It forms an imperishable picture, capable of resisting everything but intense heat and great violence, and of a material which lends itself with especial readiness to rich and harmonious colouring, while the delicate bright metallic lines bordering the cloisons form a pleasing contrast to the comparative dulness of the opaque glass. The perfection to which Messrs. Elktngton & Co. have now brought the art has only been reached by numerous experiments, and many and costly failures ; but the work which is now produced leaves little to be desired. It may be mentioned as a special feature of enamel work that it does not admit of being copied or reproduced by any other method, and hence that it can never lose its rare and costly character. The champ levee enamel, which is chiefly used for the decorative enrichment of metal work, is of a more simple kind.
The repousse work in iron is of especial interest ; and, although extremely costly originally, it differs from enamel in this–that an imitation of it can be produced at a moderate price. The artist commences with a dish or other article of fine wrought iron, and on the upper surface of this he engraves the outline of a pattern. The dish is then reversed, and is beaten at the back by punchers and hammers until the traced pattern is rendered concave at the back, and correspondingly convex on the upper surface. The prominences thus produced are finished in detail by chasing, and when this is done the dish is ready to receive further decoration by inlaying, or by damascening. For the inlaying, grooves corresponding to the lines of a traced pattern are cut in the iron, and these grooves are filled by gold or silver wire, which is driven into them by punches, and then finished upon the surface as may be required. Damascening is a slightly different process, which somewhat resembles embroidery, and leaves the hand of the artist free to follow his fancy, and to produce any flowing outlines that he may desire. A very exquisite specimen of this work is an oval mirror frame, damascened with birds and arabesques. The arabesques are simply burnished, but the birds are sculptured until the outline of almost every feather may be traced. Messrs. Elkington exhibit some copies of this kind of work, of which their well-known " Milton shield," from the original at South Kensington, is an example ; but they only copy originals which are in museums, or otherwise public property ; they include the copyright of an original repousse work in the price charged to any private purchaser. The most remarkable examples sent to America are a dessert service, a tazza, and some dishes or plaques. The dessert service is in iron repousse, inlaid with gold and silver, relieved by exquisitely-chased panels of oxidized silver, and supported on crystal pillars, delicately engraved with incised and gilt ornamentation. The tazza is in repousse silver, with a border of iron damascened and incrusted with gold, and the principal subject (which has occupied M. Morel-Ladeuil, the artist of the Helicon vase and of the Milton shield, two years in execution) is a Pompeiian lady at her toilet, attended by her slaves. The relief is so high that the figures seem almost as if undercut, and the work is regarded altogether as one of the finest specimens ever executed. A smaller plaque, by the same artist, is an allegorical group representing Charity, and another is a farmyard composition, in which a child is frightened by some clamorous poultry.
The decorative dinner and dessert services are of various styles – Egyptian, Grecian, Pompeiian, Romano-Greek, and Renaissance. They are made either in massive silver or in copper electro-plated, in either case relieved by gilding ; and two complete services, consisting of centre-pieces, plateaux, candelabra, and fruit stands, are richly decorated with champ levee enamelling, and panelled with gold.
The cloisonnee enamels, which are included in this collection, are all, we need scarcely say, exceedingly fine. M. Morel-Ladeuil's exquisite tazza, the magnificent dessert services, and the Venetian mirror designed by M. Willms, with its very beautiful framework of solid silver, inlaid with gold, are beyond description. In the production of these splendid works Messrs. Elkington must stand unrivalled, and they will even add to their great reputation by the valuable collection of articles sent to the American Exhibition, and which are of a most elaborate description.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 5th May 1876
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Messrs. Elkington and Co., of Manchester, recently supplied the silver tea and coffee service presented with an illuminated address to Mr. Josh Dickinson, late Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Mines.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 2nd May 1892
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Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 2nd May 1892
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Elkington & Co.Ltd. - London - 1907
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
It has long been a kindly custom for the Master Cutler to entertain his staff in the hall of the company at the close of the week in which the great Feast is held. Out of this has grown another custom, that of the workmen presenting their employer with some tangible token of their respect. This year Mr. Belfitt has in this way been made the recipient of two genuine works of art. The first, a plaque designed by Morel-Ladeuil, and executed by Elkington and Co., it is made in repousse silver and damascened steel, and represents the well-known trial scene in "The Merchant of Venice," where Portia lays down the law to the great discomfiture of Shylock. The second is a massive cup of sterling silver, manufactured by Messrs. Atkin Brothers, of Truro Works, Sheffield. The cup, which is 18in. in height, is fluted in the lower portion, the upper part being plain in order to bear the inscription. The Mistress Cutler was also presented with a highly artistic crescent-shaped diamond brooch with ornament to match, all in fine brilliants.
Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st October 1891
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Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 1st October 1891
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
Elkington & Co. - London, Liverpool, Dublin and Birmingham - 1864
Note that their forks marked as 'A' quality have silver prongs.
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Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
FRANK G. JACKSON
Frank G. Jackson was born in Birmingham, in December, 1831, and educated at Steelhouse Lane School. He was apprenticed to a firm of modellers, embossers, and chasers, and received his art education in the Academy of Samuel Lines, and at the Society of Artists and School of Design in New Street. Later on he was engaged for some years by the firm of Messrs. Elkington and Co., the well-known silversmiths, as a draughtsman and designer. During this engagement he went to Paris to report upon the silver wares in the Exhibition and upon art education. As a result of this report he was appointed by the School of Art Committee as a teacher of design in the evening classes in that institution. He also visited, again at the request of Messrs. Elkington and Co., the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, to report upon electro-plate and other wares. After taking three art master's certificates, he devoted his whole time to teaching at the School of Art, and to painting. He was also a frequent exhibitor at the Birmingham Royal Society of Artists and other exhibitions. He was eventually appointed second master at the School of Art, which position he filled until 1898, when he resigned, after an honourable and highly useful career as a teacher of design. He has published two books on decorative design for the use of students.
Source: Illustrated Catalogue (with Descriptive Notes) of the Permanent Collection of Paintings and Sculpture: And the Pictures in Aston Hall and Elsewhere - 1904
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Frank G. Jackson was born in Birmingham, in December, 1831, and educated at Steelhouse Lane School. He was apprenticed to a firm of modellers, embossers, and chasers, and received his art education in the Academy of Samuel Lines, and at the Society of Artists and School of Design in New Street. Later on he was engaged for some years by the firm of Messrs. Elkington and Co., the well-known silversmiths, as a draughtsman and designer. During this engagement he went to Paris to report upon the silver wares in the Exhibition and upon art education. As a result of this report he was appointed by the School of Art Committee as a teacher of design in the evening classes in that institution. He also visited, again at the request of Messrs. Elkington and Co., the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, to report upon electro-plate and other wares. After taking three art master's certificates, he devoted his whole time to teaching at the School of Art, and to painting. He was also a frequent exhibitor at the Birmingham Royal Society of Artists and other exhibitions. He was eventually appointed second master at the School of Art, which position he filled until 1898, when he resigned, after an honourable and highly useful career as a teacher of design. He has published two books on decorative design for the use of students.
Source: Illustrated Catalogue (with Descriptive Notes) of the Permanent Collection of Paintings and Sculpture: And the Pictures in Aston Hall and Elsewhere - 1904
Trev.
Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
THE RICHMOND HILL HOTEL COMPANY
Company–Dissolution and Winding-up–Application for and Acceptance of Shares–Collateral Agreement to supply Goods in Payment of Calls upon Shares.
Company.–E. & Co. applied for 150 shares in a company, and paid a deposit of 10s. per share. This application was made after an agreement with the promoter of the company that they were to receive orders for goods for the use of the company to the amount of 3,000l., and that they were not to pay any further calls beyond 10s. per share on application and 30s. per share on allotment until all the goods should have been furnished and been paid for in cash.
The shares were allotted to E. & Co., who paid 30s. per share, received the share certificates, and were registered as members of the company. No resolution was passed by the company relative to the contract as to paying for calls by supplying goods; but a subsequent offer to supply goods and to take a further amount of shares proportionate to the excess of any orders above 3,000l. was laid before the company and considered by them. No orders had been given for goods when the company was ordered to be wound up:–Held, reversing the decision of one of the Vice Chancellors, that E. & Co. were properly placed upon the list of contributories in respect of the 150 shares.
Quaere, whether, although contributories so far as regarded creditors, E. & Co., on proof of the collateral agreement, would have a right to be indemnified by the company.
In July, 1863, Mr. J. C. Hodges, who was then engaged in promoting this company, entered into negotiations with Messrs. Elkington & Co. relative to the supply of cutlery and plate for the intended hotel. The terms offered by him appear from the following letter, written to him by Messrs. Elkington & Co. on the 10th of July, 1863:
" Sir,-–We have considered the proposal made on behalf of your company to our representative, which we understand to be as follows : that you undertake to give us the order for the electro-plated goods and cutlery that will be required for the use of the hotel, at our published prices, to the amount of 3,000l., provided we on our part agree to allow you 25l. per cent, discount, and consent to take scrip for 150 shares in your company, and pay the deposit of 10s. per share on that number of shares; and we now write to signify our consent to this proposition, provided that such scrip be delivered to us at once, and be in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in the market, being as readily negotiable; that we are not to incur any liability or to be called upon to sign deed or articles for association, or to pay any further calls beyond 10s. per share until all the goods which we hereby agree to furnish shall have been supplied, and until we shall have received full payment in cash for our account. If the order does not prove to amount to the sum specified above, a proportionate part of the sum deposited by us to be returned to us.
" Elkington & Co."
On the 11th of July, Messrs. Elkington & Co. applied for 150 shares, the application being made upon the printed form, which was such as is usually employed for that purpose.
On the 11th of July, 1863, Mr. Hodges sent to Messrs. Elkington & Co. the following answer to their letter:
*' Gentlemen,–As promoter of the above company, I undertake to place in your hands the order for supplying the same with all the goods manufactured by you and required by them for said hotel, to be by you supplied at your wholesale list price, less the usual discount of 20l. per cent.; and I undertake to have this agreement confirmed at next board meeting, and entered upon the minutes of the company, a copy of which will be sent to you; and I further agree that you shall not be called upon for any money beyond the 10s. on application and 30s. on allotment on the 150 shares taken by you this day; but that any calls made shall be placed at your credit as money due to you on goods manufactured, and to be delivered unto our gentlemen.
"J. C. Hodges."
" Should your order for the board not amount to 3,000l., the proportionate reduction shall be made in your application for shares, and the amount returned to you.
"J. C. Hodges."
The company was registered on the 13th of July as a limited company, with a capital of 100,000l., in 10,000 shares of 10l. each.
On the same day, the 13th of July, Messrs. Elkington wrote to Mr. Hodges as follows:
" Sir,–We are obliged by your letter of the 11th inst., but notice that you have not attended to our condition,–that we are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association of the Richmond Hill Hotel Company. When confirming the agreement at the next board meeting, please remember that this forms part of it, and should be certified to us accordingly. With this reservation, we are quite content with the arrangement, and are much obliged to you for your kind attention.
" Elkington & Co."
And on the next day the following answer was received: " Gentlemen,–Your favour is to hand, and I will take care that your request shall form part of the minute of the board on the confirmation by them of my contract with you, although I fancy you will see, when the time comes for signature, that it will be your interest to sign with others. In my own case I should certainly sign; but as by this you will not be bound to do so, you can of course make it a matter for your own future consideration. I am happy to tell you all is progressing satisfactorily.
" J. C. Hodges."
Messrs. Elkington & Co. paid the 10s. per share deposit, and on the 1st of August, 1863, the 150 shares were allotted to them.
On the 12th of November, 1863, a meeting of the directors of the company was held, at which a clerk of Messrs. Elkington & Co. attended, in accordance with a request of the secretary. A written offer was then made by Messrs. Elkington & Co.'s clerk, which was somewhat different from the previous offers, and was as follows:
" We hereby undertake to supply your hotel with goods of our manufacture, viz., our best electro-plate, at a discount of 20l. per cent, from our catalogue prices; and that if your order exceed 3,000l., we take a further amount of shares (in payment) in proportion to the first, viz., one-half. Yours respectfully, &c.
" Elkington & Co., T. K."
A resolution was placed upon the minutes that the offer of Messrs. Elkington & Co. had been considered. On the 24th of November, 1863, Messrs. Elkington & Co. paid a call of 30s. per share, being the amount payable on allotment, and received the certificates of the shares, and they were entered on the register of shareholders. They did not, however, pay any further calls, although some were made, nor were they ever called upon to do so. No order for goods was ever given. It did not appear that the arrangement entered into by Mr. Hodges with Messrs. Elkington & Co. was ever adopted by the company.
The company was ordered to be wound up in November, 1866, and Messrs. Elkington & Co. were placed upon the list of contributories. Upon motion before Wood, V.C., on the 20th of February, 1867, his Honour directed their names to be removed from that list. From this decision the official liquidator now appealed.
Mr. E. K. Karslake and Mr. W. W. Karslake, for the appellant.– Messrs. Elkington & Co. applied for and accepted the shares; they therefore rendered themselves liable to the company. The agreement of the 12th of November, 1863, does not affect that liability; in fact, it does not even refer to it. As to the previous arrangement with the promoter, it is sufficient for the present purpose to say that it was never adopted by the company; the utmost, therefore, that it can avail to Messrs. Elkington & Co. is to give them some claim upon Mr. Hodges personally. Suppose, however, that there was a collateral agreement with the company that they were to indemnify Messrs. Elkington & Co. from payment of calls by giving orders for goods and setting off the price of the goods against the calls, still this does not affect the liability of Messrs. Elkington & Co. as regards the creditors of the company, who must be considered to rely upon the share-register, upon which Messrs. Elkington's names appeared, and could have no knowledge of any such collateral agreement. They referred to the following cases–
Ex parte Wollaston, 4 De Gex & J. 721; s. c. 28 Law J. Eep. (n.s.) Chanc. 437. Ex parte Morgan, 1 De Gex & Sm. 750; s. c. 1 Mac. & G. 225;
1 Hall & Tw. 320; 18 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 265. Frigate's case,
2 De Gex, J. & S. 456. Nickoll's case, 24 Beav. 639. Chapman and Barker's case, 3 Law Rep. Eq. 361.
And distinguished–
In re Rolling Stock of Ireland Company, 35 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 818; s. c. 1 Law Rep. Chanc. App. 567. In re Sunken Vessels' Recovery Company, Ex parte Wood, 3 De Gex & J. 85; s. c. 28 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 899.
Mr. De Gex and Mr. Caldecott, for the respondents, Messrs. Elkington & Co.–The whole of the negotiation between Messrs. Elkington &. Co. and Mr. Hodges must be considered to form part of the agreement between them and the company, except so far as the terms are expressly altered in the letter of the 12th of November; otherwise that letter is unintelligible. This being so, the contract was one which the company had a perfect right to enter into, and was this: that the taking shares was conditional upon the order for goods being given, and no calls were to be paid except in goods. If Messrs. Elkington & Co. were entered upon the register as absolute shareholders, that entry was improper. The cases of–
In re Rolling Stock of Ireland Company, and In re the Sunken Vessels' Recovery Company, and In re the Universal Salvage Company (Woodfall's case), 3 De Gex & Sm. 63, are similar to and decisive of this case. If, however, the agreement was illegal, or not binding upon the company, then it was not binding upon Messrs. Elkington & Co., who therefore cannot be held to be shareholders–
In re The Electric Telegraph Company of Ireland (Bunn's case), 2 De Gex, F. k J. 275; s. c. 29 Law J. Eep. (n.s.) Chanc. 913.
Mr. Karslake, in reply.
Lord Justice Turner.–This case has been said, perhaps accurately, to be a new case. It is certainly not quite free from difficulty.
The question arises between the Richmond Hill Hotel Company and Messrs. Elkington & Co., who are large manufacturers of plated goods, and has its origin in a letter written by them relative to the supply of goods; they had, I suppose, had some antecedent communication with the promoter of the company, which was not then in existence.–[His Lordship then read the letter of the 10th of July, 1863. ]–How the case would have stood if it had simply rested on that letter, and an acceptance of the terms contained in it, it is not, I think, necessary for us to say. It was contended that Messrs. Elkington were stipulating for scrip, and for scrip only, and there was an entire misunderstanding both on the one side and on the other; and that a dealing was contemplated in something which did not exist at the time the letter was written, and that there was, therefore, altogether a mistake in referring to scrip. But I think it would be very difficult so to construe the letter, because, although scrip is mentioned in the introductory part of it–" We consent to take scrip for 150 shares "–the term " scrip " is afterwards interpreted by the proviso contained in the letter, " provided that such scrip be delivered to us at once, and be in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in the market, being as readily negotiable." Although, therefore, the term " scrip " is introduced into the letter, scrip appears to have been understood by Messrs. Elkington, the writers of this letter, as meaning the ordinary shares of the company as sold in the market. And, certainly, if it were necessary for us to rely or to give any opinion upon the meaning of this word " scrip," I should, as I have said, feel great difficulty in supposing that Messrs. Elkington on the one side, or the promoter on the other, could be considered, or could have meant to be dealing with what was formerly designated " scrip," but which at the time of this correspondence had ceased to exist, and had been abolished by the legislature. The proposal, however, made by Messrs. Elkington was not contained in that letter alone, for, at the same time when that letter was written, there was an application made by Messrs. Elkington for shares in the company (a very clear indication of what they understood to be meant by the word " scrip "), and that application was as follows–[His Lordship read the application].–Here, therefore, is another term in the proposal made by Messrs. Elkington, the letter and the application for shares being contemporaneous; and in the result the proposal on the part of Messrs. Elkington is to take 150 negotiable shares, but not to incur liability, or to be liable to pay any calls upon those shares. How was that proposal dealt with on the part of the promoter? By a letter of the 11th of July, 1863, in answer to the letter of the 10th, he writes to Messrs. Elkington in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].–It is clear, therefore, that the promoter, when he answered that letter, treated the application by Messrs. Elkington as an application for shares; and he speaks of it in those terms in his letter, and he alters the terms of Messrs. Elkington's proposal by introducing 20l. per cent, instead of 25l. per cent., and by making provision that Messrs. Elkington are to pay upon their shares 30s. on allotment, and he speaks of those shares as " taken by Messrs. Elkington this day."
Now, it is contended that the postscript contained in this letter renders the whole contract between Messrs. Elkington and the company a contingent contract; that there was to be no contract except in the event of the order being given by the company to Messrs. Elkington for the delivery of the manufactured articles; and this, I understand, is the view which the Vice Chancellor has adopted. I cannot agree in that view, because, if this postscript had been intended to render the contract entirely contingent, I cannot understand why the application for shares was sent in by Messrs. Elkington with their letter of the 10th of July. It seems to me that their applying for the 150 shares in the terms expressed in the letter of application is quite inconsistent with the notion that it would be intended by the parties that the contract should be wholly contingent upon whether goods should be ordered or not. Not being able to put that construction upon the postscript contained in the letter, the question then arises, what construction is to be put upon it? And it seems to me, both from the language of the postscript itself and from the facts of the case, that the true construction of the postscript is that if the amount of goods to be ordered should not amount to 3,000l. in value, then a reduction should be made in the shares which had been taken by Messrs. Elkington, and a return made to them of the amount which had been paid by them. That seems to me to be the result of the contract.
Matters stood thus at the time of the incorporation of the company, which took place on the 13th of July, and immediately there came a letter of the 13th of July, 1863, from Messrs. Elkington to the promoter, who had then become secretary to the company, which is in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].–Here, therefore, it is to be observed that Messrs. Elkington treat the contract as a contract one of the conditions of which is, that they are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association, and that there is to be a confirmation by the board of the contract, and that this is to be certified to them. In answer to that letter, on the 14th of July, 1863. the promoter wrote in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].– During all this time the application for shares by Messrs. Elkington was pending–and this letter does not in any way repudiate that application, or displace that term of the proposal that was made by Messrs. Elkington to the board. All that they say is, we are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association (in fact, nobody does sign), and we are not to be liable for calls upon the shares. There is nothing to indicate, either in the letter written by Messrs. Elkington on the 13th, or in the answer sent by the promoter on the 14th, that Messrs. Elkington, if an allotment should be made to them in pursuance of their application, were not to stand in the position of shareholders of the company.
The next fact is the allotment on the 1st of August. The whole 150 shares were then allotted to Messrs. Elkington, and they paid 2251., being 30«. per share, upon 150 shares, whether they could or could not at that stage have said, " We will not take these shares at all; you are not carrying out the contract with us," is a question. It is not the question we have to decide here. They actually accepted the shares, and paid the amount which was payable on allotment. They then completely became shareholders in the company. They were registered as such, and so remained from that time down to the time when their names were taken off by the Vice Chancellor.
Nothing further passed except what occurred in the month of September. In that month Mr. Hodges, the secretary, wrote to Messrs. Elkington for a copy of the agreement with them; and on the 11th of November he summoned Messrs. Elkington to a meeting of the directors on the following day, and they attended by their clerk. Upon that occasion the clerk, on the part of Messrs. Elkington, wrote this letter–[His Lordship read the letter].–There is no alteration here in the position of Messrs. Elkington as shareholders of the company; on the contrary, there is an agreement on their part to take further shares if the order to be given by the company to them for their goods should exceed 3,000l. It seems to me, therefore, that the arrangement made by Messrs. Elkington with the company before this month of November was in no way altered by what then passed. Suppose, however, that there was a locus pcenitentice at that moment on the part of Messrs. Elkington, what did they do afterwards? They actually took away the certificates of these shares, and they have these certificates in their possession at the present time. They have ever since had the opportunity of dealing with the shares–and it is to be remembered that their original proposal stipulated that they should be negotiable shares. If dividends had been paid upon the shares, they would have been entitled to receive those dividends. The question now being, whether this Court is to remove them from the list of contributories because of the term contained in their proposal, and adopted by the company, that they were not to be called upon to pay any calls, I am of opinion that it cannot. I think that such a contract could not be carried into effect. There may be rights on the part of Messrs. Elkington, as against the company or as against individual members of the company who may have contracted with them, either to be indemnified in respect of the calls or to have the shares taken up by the company, but until such rights be established, they cannot, I think, since their names are upon the register, and they have accepted the shares on allotment, insist that they are not shareholders in the company.
With great respect, therefore, to the Vice Chancellor, I think that the order ought to be discharged, and that Messrs. Elkington must be restored to their position upon the list of contributories.
Lord Justice Cairns.–I regret in this case that I am unable to come to the same conclusion as the Vice Chancellor, because I cannot avoid thinking that, if Messrs. Elkington had been clearly aware of the consequences of what they were doing, they would have entered into their contract with this company in a different manner. But what we have to deal with are the acts and conduct of Messrs. Elkington, and not the question whether they themselves were aware what the legal consequences of those acts were. Now, in one point of view, this case seems to me to be very clear and simple. On the 11th of July Messrs. Elkington signed an application for 150 shares in the company in the printed form, and by that application they undertook to pay 30s. upon allotment on each share and calls when made, and to sign the articles of association when required to do so. That was sent in by Messrs. Elkington, in form to the company, but in reality to the promoter of the company, because the company itself was not incorporated until two days afterwards. The reply to that application came to them on the 1st of August in the same year, 1863. This was after the incorporation of the company, and it was in the usual form of a letter of allotment, allotting to them the whole 150 shares, and referring upon the face of it to their letter of application of the 11th of July. It is a distinct and categorical answer to a distinct and categorical request, complying exactly with the request in its terms. Then, that letter of allotment having come to them on the 1st of August, 1863, the next date for this purpose to which I refer is the 24th of November. Upon that day they acted upon the letter of allotment, they paid the 30s. upon each share, and they received the share certificates. These certificates certify that Messrs. Elkington are the proprietors of so many shares of certain numbers with 2l. paid, subject to the rules and regulations of the company, and these certificates Messrs. Elkington received and retained in their possession. They were put upon the register of the company, and they appeared in the returns made subsequently to the registrar. Messrs. Elkington state further that they received various circulars from time to time, and a notice of a call; they say (this appears in Mr. Elkington's itfidavit) these shares were taken by their firm on the distinct understanding that, until goods to the amount of 3,000l. had been actually taken and paid for by the company, no further call beyond 2l.. was to be paid on the shares.
Now, it seemed to me throughout the argument, that the real point for determination in this case was this, did Messrs. Elkington intend and agree to become members and shareholders in prcesenti, with a collateral agreement as to what should be the effect of their becoming shareholders? or, on the other hand, did Messrs. Elkington agree that if and when a certain preliminary condition should be performed, and not otherwise, they would become members and shareholders? To these questions a sufficient, and to my mind, conclusive answer is given by the facts which I have already referred tu. It appears to me impossible to do otherwise than answer the first of these questions in the affirmative. I think that Messrs. Elkington, whatever may have been the collateral agreement, as to the effect of their becoming shareholders, did, in fact, agree to become members and shareholders in prcesenti. It appears to me impossible to hold, by any construction of the collateral letters, that persons who distinctly apply for shares, pay their deposit upon application, receive the letters of allotment, pay the further sums due upon the letters of allotment, receive the share certificates, possess and retain those share certificates, and are returned upon the register in the usual returns made to the Joint-Stock Companies' Register Office, can be allowed afterwards to say that they were not, and did not intend to become shareholders in preesenti. They were perfectly domini of the shares: they might have sold them in the market; they might have received profit, if profit there had been upon them; and no person could, I apprehend, have controlled their right to exercise in that way dominion over the shares.
What, then, is the collateral agreement, and what is the qualification sought to be imported into this absolute document which I have referred to? I do not propose to go through the letters at length, but merely to indicate the view I take of them. Contemporaneously, or almost so, with the application for shares, was the letter of the 10th of July; probably it was written the day before the application for the shares, that being dated the 11th of the same month. It is quite true that this letter of the 10th of July spoke of not incurring liability or signing the articles until goods were supplied. At the same time that very same letter stipulates that the scrip which was to be issued for the 150 shares should be "in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in market, and as readily negotiable,"–shewing that although there was a desire that there should be no legal liability, there was also a desire co-existing that they should be masters of the shares for the purpose of selling and negotiating them in the usual way. But even if then were not, it is a letter accompanying the absolute application for shares, which I have referred to, which agrees to pay calls and to sign the articles of association. It would be impossible to say that the meaning was that the application for shares was to be deferred, held in suspense, and was not an application to receive, in the shape of allotment, an immediate answer if the company were so minded. Then comes the letter of the 11th of July from the promoter, varying some of the terms. The only part to which I will now refer is the sentence in the middle. The promoter, in answering the terms which were proposed, refers to " the 150 shares taken by you to-day," expressions which seem to me to be quite inconsistent with any idea but that of their being shareholders in preesenti. Not only that, but the promoter says he undertakes that Messrs. Elkington shall not be called upon to pay more than 10s. and 30s. on the 150 shares taken, shewing that there was a liability upon those shares, not merely in respect of the 10s. already paid, but a further liability to pay at all events 30s. more, which 30s. could only be paid upon the footing of the allotment and the receipt of the shares. Now, it is very true that to that letter there is a postscript which says, that in the event of goods less than 3,000l. being wanted, a proportional reduction shall be made upon the application for shares. That, I apprehend must be construed, even if this letter were the only document between the parties, as meaning nothing more than this: you take 150 shares; they an allotted to you; you are to pay a sum upon allotment. If hereafter it shall turn out that less goods are supplied, there shall be a reduction in you favour, which could only be by the company taking off the hands of Messrs Elkington the surplus shares which they had over and above the amount to be set against the goods supplied. This, I need not say, would not affect the position of Messrs. Elkington as shareholders ab initio, but would be a taking off of their hands shares which, up to that time, they were possessors of.
I have referred to this letter of the 11th of July, and I have referred to it upon the assumption–which, perhaps, is too favourable for Messrs. Elkington– that it was at some time distinctly before the company, after its incorporation. At the time it was written it certainly could not have been before the company or received their confirmation, because the company was not incorporated until one or two days afterwards.
Then come the letters of the 13th and 14th of July, which I think also are of some importance. The letter of the 13th is from Messrs. Elkington, reminding the promoter that he had taken no notice of the clause in their letter, that they were not to be called upon to sign the articles of association. Messrs. Elkington had said, " Please remember that this forms part of our agreement, and should be certified to us accordingly." To that the promoter says, " Your favour is to hand, and I will take care that your request shall form part of the minute of the board on the confirmation by them of my contract with you." He then proceeds to reason with them, saying that if he were in their place he would feel no difficulty about signing, and he adds, " You can make it a matter for your future consideration." Now I refer to those letters because they shew that at that time Messrs. Elkington seemed to think that they were to have the contract immediately submitted to the company, and that they were to have (whatever might be its value is another matter) a distinct statement in the form of a resolution of the company that they were not to be called upon to sign the articles of association. But what happened afterwards? There was no such application made at any board meeting, no resolution passed, Do such certification of the resolution to them that they were not to be liable upon the articles of association, and the letter of allotment was sent to them without any of those preliminaries having taken place, which the letters of the 13th and 14th of July contemplate.
Now I am not prepared at all to say that it would not have been perfectly competent for Messrs. Elkington, on receiving the letter of allotment, to have returned it to the company and to have said, " There is a complete misunderstanding in sending us this letter of allotment; referring to the correspondence that has passed between your promoter and ourselves: you will find that, although we went through the form of applying for shares, the whole of that was subject to the understanding that either you should give us a resolution of the company that we were to be under no liability upon these shares, or that we should have a right of refusing to take shares upon which we were to be liable." They did nothing of the kind. They received the letter of allotment, they kept it, and then came the proceedings in the month of November. Those proceedings originated in Mr. Hodges writing to Messrs. Elkington for a copy of their agreement with them. What was sent we do not know; whether it was me, two or three, or the whole of the four letters. On the 11th of November, 1863, the secretary of the company writes back to Messrs. Elkington, saying, " they," that is, the company, " have considered your letter in reference to supplying the Richmond Hotel," which certainly seems to imply that they hid only one letter before them. Then comes the board meeting on the 12th of November, 1863, and the resolution upon the minutes, " That the tender of Messrs. Elkington had been considered," which again appears rather to infer that one document only had been before the board. But I do not dwell upon that. The result is, that a further letter was written on that day at the board by the agent of Messrs. Elkington, agreeing to take more shares if more than 3,000l. worth of goods were ordered, and nothing whatever was said by way of qualification of "the effect which 1 am bound to attribute to the allotment of shares that had then taken place; no further agreement was come to altering in any way whatever the legal position of Messrs. Elkington at the time of the allotment of the shares. I have said already that, at the time of the allotment of the shares, no collateral agreement had been made, or had been confirmed by the company, and therefore I am bound to take that allotment of shares as having put Messrs. Elkington in the absolute position of shareholders.
Therefore, of the two questions which seem to me to represent the two alternative views of the case, I am bound to answer in the affirmative to one which suggests that Messrs. Elkington intended to be shareholders in proesenti. This is decisive with respect to the present application. It is quite obvious that hereafter another and a very different question may arise in the case of Messrs. Elkington, to which a more favourable answer may be given for them. I mean that Messrs. Elkington, having become shareholders in proesenti, with a collateral agreement that, in some way or other, the payment of calls upon the shares should be connected with the supply of goods (and I feel bound to say that I think there are strong grounds for contending that such agreement existed), whether, as regards the company (I do not speak of the creditors of the company), that does not give Messrs. Elkington a right to say that, since no goods have been supplied, if they are called upon to make a contribution in respect of these shares for the creditors of the company, they must in turn be indemnified by the company itself for that contribution. That is a controversy, however, not before us to-day. It will depend, of course, upon whether this collateral agreement can be established, and whether it was ultra vires or intra vires of the directors. At present we are bound to say that Messrs. Elkington were rightly put on the list, and that they must remain there. I think with my learned Brother that there should be no costs as regards Messrs. Elkington either in the Court below or here. The official liquidator will take his costs out of the estate.
Source: English Reports Annotated, 1866-1900 - Maxwell Alexander Robertson - 1867
Trev.
Company–Dissolution and Winding-up–Application for and Acceptance of Shares–Collateral Agreement to supply Goods in Payment of Calls upon Shares.
Company.–E. & Co. applied for 150 shares in a company, and paid a deposit of 10s. per share. This application was made after an agreement with the promoter of the company that they were to receive orders for goods for the use of the company to the amount of 3,000l., and that they were not to pay any further calls beyond 10s. per share on application and 30s. per share on allotment until all the goods should have been furnished and been paid for in cash.
The shares were allotted to E. & Co., who paid 30s. per share, received the share certificates, and were registered as members of the company. No resolution was passed by the company relative to the contract as to paying for calls by supplying goods; but a subsequent offer to supply goods and to take a further amount of shares proportionate to the excess of any orders above 3,000l. was laid before the company and considered by them. No orders had been given for goods when the company was ordered to be wound up:–Held, reversing the decision of one of the Vice Chancellors, that E. & Co. were properly placed upon the list of contributories in respect of the 150 shares.
Quaere, whether, although contributories so far as regarded creditors, E. & Co., on proof of the collateral agreement, would have a right to be indemnified by the company.
In July, 1863, Mr. J. C. Hodges, who was then engaged in promoting this company, entered into negotiations with Messrs. Elkington & Co. relative to the supply of cutlery and plate for the intended hotel. The terms offered by him appear from the following letter, written to him by Messrs. Elkington & Co. on the 10th of July, 1863:
" Sir,-–We have considered the proposal made on behalf of your company to our representative, which we understand to be as follows : that you undertake to give us the order for the electro-plated goods and cutlery that will be required for the use of the hotel, at our published prices, to the amount of 3,000l., provided we on our part agree to allow you 25l. per cent, discount, and consent to take scrip for 150 shares in your company, and pay the deposit of 10s. per share on that number of shares; and we now write to signify our consent to this proposition, provided that such scrip be delivered to us at once, and be in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in the market, being as readily negotiable; that we are not to incur any liability or to be called upon to sign deed or articles for association, or to pay any further calls beyond 10s. per share until all the goods which we hereby agree to furnish shall have been supplied, and until we shall have received full payment in cash for our account. If the order does not prove to amount to the sum specified above, a proportionate part of the sum deposited by us to be returned to us.
" Elkington & Co."
On the 11th of July, Messrs. Elkington & Co. applied for 150 shares, the application being made upon the printed form, which was such as is usually employed for that purpose.
On the 11th of July, 1863, Mr. Hodges sent to Messrs. Elkington & Co. the following answer to their letter:
*' Gentlemen,–As promoter of the above company, I undertake to place in your hands the order for supplying the same with all the goods manufactured by you and required by them for said hotel, to be by you supplied at your wholesale list price, less the usual discount of 20l. per cent.; and I undertake to have this agreement confirmed at next board meeting, and entered upon the minutes of the company, a copy of which will be sent to you; and I further agree that you shall not be called upon for any money beyond the 10s. on application and 30s. on allotment on the 150 shares taken by you this day; but that any calls made shall be placed at your credit as money due to you on goods manufactured, and to be delivered unto our gentlemen.
"J. C. Hodges."
" Should your order for the board not amount to 3,000l., the proportionate reduction shall be made in your application for shares, and the amount returned to you.
"J. C. Hodges."
The company was registered on the 13th of July as a limited company, with a capital of 100,000l., in 10,000 shares of 10l. each.
On the same day, the 13th of July, Messrs. Elkington wrote to Mr. Hodges as follows:
" Sir,–We are obliged by your letter of the 11th inst., but notice that you have not attended to our condition,–that we are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association of the Richmond Hill Hotel Company. When confirming the agreement at the next board meeting, please remember that this forms part of it, and should be certified to us accordingly. With this reservation, we are quite content with the arrangement, and are much obliged to you for your kind attention.
" Elkington & Co."
And on the next day the following answer was received: " Gentlemen,–Your favour is to hand, and I will take care that your request shall form part of the minute of the board on the confirmation by them of my contract with you, although I fancy you will see, when the time comes for signature, that it will be your interest to sign with others. In my own case I should certainly sign; but as by this you will not be bound to do so, you can of course make it a matter for your own future consideration. I am happy to tell you all is progressing satisfactorily.
" J. C. Hodges."
Messrs. Elkington & Co. paid the 10s. per share deposit, and on the 1st of August, 1863, the 150 shares were allotted to them.
On the 12th of November, 1863, a meeting of the directors of the company was held, at which a clerk of Messrs. Elkington & Co. attended, in accordance with a request of the secretary. A written offer was then made by Messrs. Elkington & Co.'s clerk, which was somewhat different from the previous offers, and was as follows:
" We hereby undertake to supply your hotel with goods of our manufacture, viz., our best electro-plate, at a discount of 20l. per cent, from our catalogue prices; and that if your order exceed 3,000l., we take a further amount of shares (in payment) in proportion to the first, viz., one-half. Yours respectfully, &c.
" Elkington & Co., T. K."
A resolution was placed upon the minutes that the offer of Messrs. Elkington & Co. had been considered. On the 24th of November, 1863, Messrs. Elkington & Co. paid a call of 30s. per share, being the amount payable on allotment, and received the certificates of the shares, and they were entered on the register of shareholders. They did not, however, pay any further calls, although some were made, nor were they ever called upon to do so. No order for goods was ever given. It did not appear that the arrangement entered into by Mr. Hodges with Messrs. Elkington & Co. was ever adopted by the company.
The company was ordered to be wound up in November, 1866, and Messrs. Elkington & Co. were placed upon the list of contributories. Upon motion before Wood, V.C., on the 20th of February, 1867, his Honour directed their names to be removed from that list. From this decision the official liquidator now appealed.
Mr. E. K. Karslake and Mr. W. W. Karslake, for the appellant.– Messrs. Elkington & Co. applied for and accepted the shares; they therefore rendered themselves liable to the company. The agreement of the 12th of November, 1863, does not affect that liability; in fact, it does not even refer to it. As to the previous arrangement with the promoter, it is sufficient for the present purpose to say that it was never adopted by the company; the utmost, therefore, that it can avail to Messrs. Elkington & Co. is to give them some claim upon Mr. Hodges personally. Suppose, however, that there was a collateral agreement with the company that they were to indemnify Messrs. Elkington & Co. from payment of calls by giving orders for goods and setting off the price of the goods against the calls, still this does not affect the liability of Messrs. Elkington & Co. as regards the creditors of the company, who must be considered to rely upon the share-register, upon which Messrs. Elkington's names appeared, and could have no knowledge of any such collateral agreement. They referred to the following cases–
Ex parte Wollaston, 4 De Gex & J. 721; s. c. 28 Law J. Eep. (n.s.) Chanc. 437. Ex parte Morgan, 1 De Gex & Sm. 750; s. c. 1 Mac. & G. 225;
1 Hall & Tw. 320; 18 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 265. Frigate's case,
2 De Gex, J. & S. 456. Nickoll's case, 24 Beav. 639. Chapman and Barker's case, 3 Law Rep. Eq. 361.
And distinguished–
In re Rolling Stock of Ireland Company, 35 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 818; s. c. 1 Law Rep. Chanc. App. 567. In re Sunken Vessels' Recovery Company, Ex parte Wood, 3 De Gex & J. 85; s. c. 28 Law J. Rep. (n.s.) Chanc. 899.
Mr. De Gex and Mr. Caldecott, for the respondents, Messrs. Elkington & Co.–The whole of the negotiation between Messrs. Elkington &. Co. and Mr. Hodges must be considered to form part of the agreement between them and the company, except so far as the terms are expressly altered in the letter of the 12th of November; otherwise that letter is unintelligible. This being so, the contract was one which the company had a perfect right to enter into, and was this: that the taking shares was conditional upon the order for goods being given, and no calls were to be paid except in goods. If Messrs. Elkington & Co. were entered upon the register as absolute shareholders, that entry was improper. The cases of–
In re Rolling Stock of Ireland Company, and In re the Sunken Vessels' Recovery Company, and In re the Universal Salvage Company (Woodfall's case), 3 De Gex & Sm. 63, are similar to and decisive of this case. If, however, the agreement was illegal, or not binding upon the company, then it was not binding upon Messrs. Elkington & Co., who therefore cannot be held to be shareholders–
In re The Electric Telegraph Company of Ireland (Bunn's case), 2 De Gex, F. k J. 275; s. c. 29 Law J. Eep. (n.s.) Chanc. 913.
Mr. Karslake, in reply.
Lord Justice Turner.–This case has been said, perhaps accurately, to be a new case. It is certainly not quite free from difficulty.
The question arises between the Richmond Hill Hotel Company and Messrs. Elkington & Co., who are large manufacturers of plated goods, and has its origin in a letter written by them relative to the supply of goods; they had, I suppose, had some antecedent communication with the promoter of the company, which was not then in existence.–[His Lordship then read the letter of the 10th of July, 1863. ]–How the case would have stood if it had simply rested on that letter, and an acceptance of the terms contained in it, it is not, I think, necessary for us to say. It was contended that Messrs. Elkington were stipulating for scrip, and for scrip only, and there was an entire misunderstanding both on the one side and on the other; and that a dealing was contemplated in something which did not exist at the time the letter was written, and that there was, therefore, altogether a mistake in referring to scrip. But I think it would be very difficult so to construe the letter, because, although scrip is mentioned in the introductory part of it–" We consent to take scrip for 150 shares "–the term " scrip " is afterwards interpreted by the proviso contained in the letter, " provided that such scrip be delivered to us at once, and be in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in the market, being as readily negotiable." Although, therefore, the term " scrip " is introduced into the letter, scrip appears to have been understood by Messrs. Elkington, the writers of this letter, as meaning the ordinary shares of the company as sold in the market. And, certainly, if it were necessary for us to rely or to give any opinion upon the meaning of this word " scrip," I should, as I have said, feel great difficulty in supposing that Messrs. Elkington on the one side, or the promoter on the other, could be considered, or could have meant to be dealing with what was formerly designated " scrip," but which at the time of this correspondence had ceased to exist, and had been abolished by the legislature. The proposal, however, made by Messrs. Elkington was not contained in that letter alone, for, at the same time when that letter was written, there was an application made by Messrs. Elkington for shares in the company (a very clear indication of what they understood to be meant by the word " scrip "), and that application was as follows–[His Lordship read the application].–Here, therefore, is another term in the proposal made by Messrs. Elkington, the letter and the application for shares being contemporaneous; and in the result the proposal on the part of Messrs. Elkington is to take 150 negotiable shares, but not to incur liability, or to be liable to pay any calls upon those shares. How was that proposal dealt with on the part of the promoter? By a letter of the 11th of July, 1863, in answer to the letter of the 10th, he writes to Messrs. Elkington in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].–It is clear, therefore, that the promoter, when he answered that letter, treated the application by Messrs. Elkington as an application for shares; and he speaks of it in those terms in his letter, and he alters the terms of Messrs. Elkington's proposal by introducing 20l. per cent, instead of 25l. per cent., and by making provision that Messrs. Elkington are to pay upon their shares 30s. on allotment, and he speaks of those shares as " taken by Messrs. Elkington this day."
Now, it is contended that the postscript contained in this letter renders the whole contract between Messrs. Elkington and the company a contingent contract; that there was to be no contract except in the event of the order being given by the company to Messrs. Elkington for the delivery of the manufactured articles; and this, I understand, is the view which the Vice Chancellor has adopted. I cannot agree in that view, because, if this postscript had been intended to render the contract entirely contingent, I cannot understand why the application for shares was sent in by Messrs. Elkington with their letter of the 10th of July. It seems to me that their applying for the 150 shares in the terms expressed in the letter of application is quite inconsistent with the notion that it would be intended by the parties that the contract should be wholly contingent upon whether goods should be ordered or not. Not being able to put that construction upon the postscript contained in the letter, the question then arises, what construction is to be put upon it? And it seems to me, both from the language of the postscript itself and from the facts of the case, that the true construction of the postscript is that if the amount of goods to be ordered should not amount to 3,000l. in value, then a reduction should be made in the shares which had been taken by Messrs. Elkington, and a return made to them of the amount which had been paid by them. That seems to me to be the result of the contract.
Matters stood thus at the time of the incorporation of the company, which took place on the 13th of July, and immediately there came a letter of the 13th of July, 1863, from Messrs. Elkington to the promoter, who had then become secretary to the company, which is in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].–Here, therefore, it is to be observed that Messrs. Elkington treat the contract as a contract one of the conditions of which is, that they are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association, and that there is to be a confirmation by the board of the contract, and that this is to be certified to them. In answer to that letter, on the 14th of July, 1863. the promoter wrote in these terms–[His Lordship read the letter].– During all this time the application for shares by Messrs. Elkington was pending–and this letter does not in any way repudiate that application, or displace that term of the proposal that was made by Messrs. Elkington to the board. All that they say is, we are not to be called upon to sign the articles of association (in fact, nobody does sign), and we are not to be liable for calls upon the shares. There is nothing to indicate, either in the letter written by Messrs. Elkington on the 13th, or in the answer sent by the promoter on the 14th, that Messrs. Elkington, if an allotment should be made to them in pursuance of their application, were not to stand in the position of shareholders of the company.
The next fact is the allotment on the 1st of August. The whole 150 shares were then allotted to Messrs. Elkington, and they paid 2251., being 30«. per share, upon 150 shares, whether they could or could not at that stage have said, " We will not take these shares at all; you are not carrying out the contract with us," is a question. It is not the question we have to decide here. They actually accepted the shares, and paid the amount which was payable on allotment. They then completely became shareholders in the company. They were registered as such, and so remained from that time down to the time when their names were taken off by the Vice Chancellor.
Nothing further passed except what occurred in the month of September. In that month Mr. Hodges, the secretary, wrote to Messrs. Elkington for a copy of the agreement with them; and on the 11th of November he summoned Messrs. Elkington to a meeting of the directors on the following day, and they attended by their clerk. Upon that occasion the clerk, on the part of Messrs. Elkington, wrote this letter–[His Lordship read the letter].–There is no alteration here in the position of Messrs. Elkington as shareholders of the company; on the contrary, there is an agreement on their part to take further shares if the order to be given by the company to them for their goods should exceed 3,000l. It seems to me, therefore, that the arrangement made by Messrs. Elkington with the company before this month of November was in no way altered by what then passed. Suppose, however, that there was a locus pcenitentice at that moment on the part of Messrs. Elkington, what did they do afterwards? They actually took away the certificates of these shares, and they have these certificates in their possession at the present time. They have ever since had the opportunity of dealing with the shares–and it is to be remembered that their original proposal stipulated that they should be negotiable shares. If dividends had been paid upon the shares, they would have been entitled to receive those dividends. The question now being, whether this Court is to remove them from the list of contributories because of the term contained in their proposal, and adopted by the company, that they were not to be called upon to pay any calls, I am of opinion that it cannot. I think that such a contract could not be carried into effect. There may be rights on the part of Messrs. Elkington, as against the company or as against individual members of the company who may have contracted with them, either to be indemnified in respect of the calls or to have the shares taken up by the company, but until such rights be established, they cannot, I think, since their names are upon the register, and they have accepted the shares on allotment, insist that they are not shareholders in the company.
With great respect, therefore, to the Vice Chancellor, I think that the order ought to be discharged, and that Messrs. Elkington must be restored to their position upon the list of contributories.
Lord Justice Cairns.–I regret in this case that I am unable to come to the same conclusion as the Vice Chancellor, because I cannot avoid thinking that, if Messrs. Elkington had been clearly aware of the consequences of what they were doing, they would have entered into their contract with this company in a different manner. But what we have to deal with are the acts and conduct of Messrs. Elkington, and not the question whether they themselves were aware what the legal consequences of those acts were. Now, in one point of view, this case seems to me to be very clear and simple. On the 11th of July Messrs. Elkington signed an application for 150 shares in the company in the printed form, and by that application they undertook to pay 30s. upon allotment on each share and calls when made, and to sign the articles of association when required to do so. That was sent in by Messrs. Elkington, in form to the company, but in reality to the promoter of the company, because the company itself was not incorporated until two days afterwards. The reply to that application came to them on the 1st of August in the same year, 1863. This was after the incorporation of the company, and it was in the usual form of a letter of allotment, allotting to them the whole 150 shares, and referring upon the face of it to their letter of application of the 11th of July. It is a distinct and categorical answer to a distinct and categorical request, complying exactly with the request in its terms. Then, that letter of allotment having come to them on the 1st of August, 1863, the next date for this purpose to which I refer is the 24th of November. Upon that day they acted upon the letter of allotment, they paid the 30s. upon each share, and they received the share certificates. These certificates certify that Messrs. Elkington are the proprietors of so many shares of certain numbers with 2l. paid, subject to the rules and regulations of the company, and these certificates Messrs. Elkington received and retained in their possession. They were put upon the register of the company, and they appeared in the returns made subsequently to the registrar. Messrs. Elkington state further that they received various circulars from time to time, and a notice of a call; they say (this appears in Mr. Elkington's itfidavit) these shares were taken by their firm on the distinct understanding that, until goods to the amount of 3,000l. had been actually taken and paid for by the company, no further call beyond 2l.. was to be paid on the shares.
Now, it seemed to me throughout the argument, that the real point for determination in this case was this, did Messrs. Elkington intend and agree to become members and shareholders in prcesenti, with a collateral agreement as to what should be the effect of their becoming shareholders? or, on the other hand, did Messrs. Elkington agree that if and when a certain preliminary condition should be performed, and not otherwise, they would become members and shareholders? To these questions a sufficient, and to my mind, conclusive answer is given by the facts which I have already referred tu. It appears to me impossible to do otherwise than answer the first of these questions in the affirmative. I think that Messrs. Elkington, whatever may have been the collateral agreement, as to the effect of their becoming shareholders, did, in fact, agree to become members and shareholders in prcesenti. It appears to me impossible to hold, by any construction of the collateral letters, that persons who distinctly apply for shares, pay their deposit upon application, receive the letters of allotment, pay the further sums due upon the letters of allotment, receive the share certificates, possess and retain those share certificates, and are returned upon the register in the usual returns made to the Joint-Stock Companies' Register Office, can be allowed afterwards to say that they were not, and did not intend to become shareholders in preesenti. They were perfectly domini of the shares: they might have sold them in the market; they might have received profit, if profit there had been upon them; and no person could, I apprehend, have controlled their right to exercise in that way dominion over the shares.
What, then, is the collateral agreement, and what is the qualification sought to be imported into this absolute document which I have referred to? I do not propose to go through the letters at length, but merely to indicate the view I take of them. Contemporaneously, or almost so, with the application for shares, was the letter of the 10th of July; probably it was written the day before the application for the shares, that being dated the 11th of the same month. It is quite true that this letter of the 10th of July spoke of not incurring liability or signing the articles until goods were supplied. At the same time that very same letter stipulates that the scrip which was to be issued for the 150 shares should be "in no way different from your ordinary shares as sold in market, and as readily negotiable,"–shewing that although there was a desire that there should be no legal liability, there was also a desire co-existing that they should be masters of the shares for the purpose of selling and negotiating them in the usual way. But even if then were not, it is a letter accompanying the absolute application for shares, which I have referred to, which agrees to pay calls and to sign the articles of association. It would be impossible to say that the meaning was that the application for shares was to be deferred, held in suspense, and was not an application to receive, in the shape of allotment, an immediate answer if the company were so minded. Then comes the letter of the 11th of July from the promoter, varying some of the terms. The only part to which I will now refer is the sentence in the middle. The promoter, in answering the terms which were proposed, refers to " the 150 shares taken by you to-day," expressions which seem to me to be quite inconsistent with any idea but that of their being shareholders in preesenti. Not only that, but the promoter says he undertakes that Messrs. Elkington shall not be called upon to pay more than 10s. and 30s. on the 150 shares taken, shewing that there was a liability upon those shares, not merely in respect of the 10s. already paid, but a further liability to pay at all events 30s. more, which 30s. could only be paid upon the footing of the allotment and the receipt of the shares. Now, it is very true that to that letter there is a postscript which says, that in the event of goods less than 3,000l. being wanted, a proportional reduction shall be made upon the application for shares. That, I apprehend must be construed, even if this letter were the only document between the parties, as meaning nothing more than this: you take 150 shares; they an allotted to you; you are to pay a sum upon allotment. If hereafter it shall turn out that less goods are supplied, there shall be a reduction in you favour, which could only be by the company taking off the hands of Messrs Elkington the surplus shares which they had over and above the amount to be set against the goods supplied. This, I need not say, would not affect the position of Messrs. Elkington as shareholders ab initio, but would be a taking off of their hands shares which, up to that time, they were possessors of.
I have referred to this letter of the 11th of July, and I have referred to it upon the assumption–which, perhaps, is too favourable for Messrs. Elkington– that it was at some time distinctly before the company, after its incorporation. At the time it was written it certainly could not have been before the company or received their confirmation, because the company was not incorporated until one or two days afterwards.
Then come the letters of the 13th and 14th of July, which I think also are of some importance. The letter of the 13th is from Messrs. Elkington, reminding the promoter that he had taken no notice of the clause in their letter, that they were not to be called upon to sign the articles of association. Messrs. Elkington had said, " Please remember that this forms part of our agreement, and should be certified to us accordingly." To that the promoter says, " Your favour is to hand, and I will take care that your request shall form part of the minute of the board on the confirmation by them of my contract with you." He then proceeds to reason with them, saying that if he were in their place he would feel no difficulty about signing, and he adds, " You can make it a matter for your future consideration." Now I refer to those letters because they shew that at that time Messrs. Elkington seemed to think that they were to have the contract immediately submitted to the company, and that they were to have (whatever might be its value is another matter) a distinct statement in the form of a resolution of the company that they were not to be called upon to sign the articles of association. But what happened afterwards? There was no such application made at any board meeting, no resolution passed, Do such certification of the resolution to them that they were not to be liable upon the articles of association, and the letter of allotment was sent to them without any of those preliminaries having taken place, which the letters of the 13th and 14th of July contemplate.
Now I am not prepared at all to say that it would not have been perfectly competent for Messrs. Elkington, on receiving the letter of allotment, to have returned it to the company and to have said, " There is a complete misunderstanding in sending us this letter of allotment; referring to the correspondence that has passed between your promoter and ourselves: you will find that, although we went through the form of applying for shares, the whole of that was subject to the understanding that either you should give us a resolution of the company that we were to be under no liability upon these shares, or that we should have a right of refusing to take shares upon which we were to be liable." They did nothing of the kind. They received the letter of allotment, they kept it, and then came the proceedings in the month of November. Those proceedings originated in Mr. Hodges writing to Messrs. Elkington for a copy of their agreement with them. What was sent we do not know; whether it was me, two or three, or the whole of the four letters. On the 11th of November, 1863, the secretary of the company writes back to Messrs. Elkington, saying, " they," that is, the company, " have considered your letter in reference to supplying the Richmond Hotel," which certainly seems to imply that they hid only one letter before them. Then comes the board meeting on the 12th of November, 1863, and the resolution upon the minutes, " That the tender of Messrs. Elkington had been considered," which again appears rather to infer that one document only had been before the board. But I do not dwell upon that. The result is, that a further letter was written on that day at the board by the agent of Messrs. Elkington, agreeing to take more shares if more than 3,000l. worth of goods were ordered, and nothing whatever was said by way of qualification of "the effect which 1 am bound to attribute to the allotment of shares that had then taken place; no further agreement was come to altering in any way whatever the legal position of Messrs. Elkington at the time of the allotment of the shares. I have said already that, at the time of the allotment of the shares, no collateral agreement had been made, or had been confirmed by the company, and therefore I am bound to take that allotment of shares as having put Messrs. Elkington in the absolute position of shareholders.
Therefore, of the two questions which seem to me to represent the two alternative views of the case, I am bound to answer in the affirmative to one which suggests that Messrs. Elkington intended to be shareholders in proesenti. This is decisive with respect to the present application. It is quite obvious that hereafter another and a very different question may arise in the case of Messrs. Elkington, to which a more favourable answer may be given for them. I mean that Messrs. Elkington, having become shareholders in proesenti, with a collateral agreement that, in some way or other, the payment of calls upon the shares should be connected with the supply of goods (and I feel bound to say that I think there are strong grounds for contending that such agreement existed), whether, as regards the company (I do not speak of the creditors of the company), that does not give Messrs. Elkington a right to say that, since no goods have been supplied, if they are called upon to make a contribution in respect of these shares for the creditors of the company, they must in turn be indemnified by the company itself for that contribution. That is a controversy, however, not before us to-day. It will depend, of course, upon whether this collateral agreement can be established, and whether it was ultra vires or intra vires of the directors. At present we are bound to say that Messrs. Elkington were rightly put on the list, and that they must remain there. I think with my learned Brother that there should be no costs as regards Messrs. Elkington either in the Court below or here. The official liquidator will take his costs out of the estate.
Source: English Reports Annotated, 1866-1900 - Maxwell Alexander Robertson - 1867
Trev.
Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
THE PARIS EXHIBITION (Exposition Universelle) - 1878
Class 24 is headed in the list of awards "Clockmaking," but it should really read "Goldsmith's and silversmith's work. The most prominent exhibitors in this section, Messrs. Elkington and Co., of Birmingham–who have supplied a costly service of plate for the Prince of Wales's pavilion, and have made a splendid display of high-class manufactures–take the principal award–a gold medal. The fact that a New York firm receive a grand prix, while Messrs. Elkington have only a gold medal, has been a subject of much comment at Paris, and the reasons the list of awards should really read for this preference are somewhat hard to unravel. We believe that the jury considered that more novelty and taste were exhibited in the comparatively small show of the Americans than in the beautiful collection of objects contributed by the English firm. Anyhow the choice of an American rival for the greater honour should have the effect of spurring on their English rivals to increased efforts, for it will never do to allow American manufacturers to outstrip us in the art manufactures in which we have hitherto been pre-eminent, in the same way as they are slowly but surely driving our staple English manufactures of hardware, cotton goods, and machinery from the markets of the Continent. Messrs. Mackey, Cunningham, and Co., of Edinburgh, receive a silver medal for silver plate and jewellery, while there are ten minor awards. Professor Archer, the director of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, was the English juror.
Source: The Building News and Engineering Journal - 1878
Trev.
Class 24 is headed in the list of awards "Clockmaking," but it should really read "Goldsmith's and silversmith's work. The most prominent exhibitors in this section, Messrs. Elkington and Co., of Birmingham–who have supplied a costly service of plate for the Prince of Wales's pavilion, and have made a splendid display of high-class manufactures–take the principal award–a gold medal. The fact that a New York firm receive a grand prix, while Messrs. Elkington have only a gold medal, has been a subject of much comment at Paris, and the reasons the list of awards should really read for this preference are somewhat hard to unravel. We believe that the jury considered that more novelty and taste were exhibited in the comparatively small show of the Americans than in the beautiful collection of objects contributed by the English firm. Anyhow the choice of an American rival for the greater honour should have the effect of spurring on their English rivals to increased efforts, for it will never do to allow American manufacturers to outstrip us in the art manufactures in which we have hitherto been pre-eminent, in the same way as they are slowly but surely driving our staple English manufactures of hardware, cotton goods, and machinery from the markets of the Continent. Messrs. Mackey, Cunningham, and Co., of Edinburgh, receive a silver medal for silver plate and jewellery, while there are ten minor awards. Professor Archer, the director of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, was the English juror.
Source: The Building News and Engineering Journal - 1878
Trev.
Re: Elkington & Co. - Information and Advertisements
DEATH OF SIR JOSIAH MASON
We have with deep regret, which will be shared by the whole community, to announce the death of our venerable townsman and benefactor, Sir Josiah Mason, which took place yesterday, after an illness of considerable duration.
Sir Josiah Mason was born on the 23rd of February, 1795, at Kidderminster, in a little house in Mill Street, a circumstance identified with the place, the upper part of Mill Street being now called Josiah Mason Street, to commemorate a benefaction given by Sir Josiah to the dispensary of the town. His ancestors, so far as they are known, were Kidderminster people. But this knowledge does not go very far back–not further than Sir Josiah's grandfather, a working bombazine weaver, who was also a good mechanic, and was in much request as a mender of looms and other weaving and milling machinery. This Josiah Mason had an only son, also Josiah, who was at first a bombazine weaver, then a carpet weaver, and finally a clerk to Mr. John Broom, a carpet manufacturer at Kidderminster. He married Elizabeth Griffiths, the daughter of a respectable workman at Dudley; and the second son of the couple just described was the Josiah Mason whose enterprise and whose noble employment of his wealth have combined to make him famous. There were three other children of the marriage, two boys and a girl; one of the sons died young, and the other and the daughter have now been dead for some years.
The early life of Josiah Mason was hard and unpromising. His only schooling was that obtained at a dame school, held in a cottage next door to his father's house, and this was not merely poor, but extremely brief–so brief, indeed, that at about eight years' old Josiah began to work, and characteristically enough, on his own account. It was a humble line of business–that of selling cakes in the streets. When speaking in later years of his early life, Sir Josiah Mason used to recount with much humour, and not without a touch of honest pride, his entrance upon "trade ;" how he held the position of a sort of middleman, going to the baker's, and buying his cakes at sixteen to the dozen, putting them into a couple of baskets, neatly fitted up by his mother, and going his rounds amongst his regular customers, with whom the little fellow became so great a favourite that they always waited for "Joe's cakes" and rolls, and sometimes gave him a penny extra, as much out of kindness for the vendor as of liking for his wares. His next venture was of a more ambitious kind: the cake baskets were turned into panniers, and were strung over the back of a donkey–loftily named after Admiral Rodney–and Josiah Mason converted himself into a dealer in fruit and vegetables, which he carried about from door to door. So matters went on until the lad was about fifteen, when he grew tired of the trade of the streets, and began to desire more settled employment. One reason for this was that his elder brother, a confirmed invalid, needed company, and in order that he might give him this, and generally take care of the sick brother, Josiah taught himself shoemaking. For a time this answered, but eventually it had to be given up. Josiah, true to the instincts of his nature, was too strict a stickler for quality. As he told the writer of these lines, he bought the best leather, and put into it the best work, and he humorously added, "I found I couldn't make it pay, and must become bankrupt, and so I gave it up." He now devoted himself to improving his education, and in this way he contrived to teach himself writing; then, by acting as a letter-writer for the poor people about him, he managed to earn enough to buy a few books, chiefly of a solid kind– theology, history, and elementary science; novels, and light literature generally, being excluded from his course. In these studies he was much assisted by instruction received at the Unitarian Sunday School, the well-known Kidderminster Old Meeting–formerly Richard Baxter's chapel–and afterwards he attended the Wesleyan Sunday School, where writing was taught.
The increase of knowledge thus acquired led Josiah Mason still more strongly to desire regular employment. He tried shopkeeping, baking, carpentering, and blacksmith's work, and then house-painting, and finally, for a time settled down to bis father's old trade of carpet weaving, which he began in 1814, when about nineteen years old, at Mr. Broom's works at Tinker's Hill. Here he stayed for two years, but trade was bad, earnings were small–a pound a week being about the utmost attainable –and so he determined to try his fortunes in the larger town of Birmingham, to which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. He had an uncle in Birmingham, Richard Griffiths, his mother's brother, and when about twenty-one, Josiah paid his uncle a Christmas visit. This visit decided Mason s future in two respects. He fell in love with his cousin, Anne Griffiths, and married her at Aston Church on the i8th of August, 1817–a union prolonged in unalloyed happiness and mutual confidence for fifty-three years; when, to the great grief of the survivor, it was dissolved by the death of Mrs. Mason on the 24th of February, 1870. This marriage also decided Mason's employment. After living for some time with his uncle, and then in a little house in a court in Bagot Street, he removed to Legge Street, to take charge of a gilt toy–fancy imitation jewellery– business belonging to the uncle, who, being a clerk in Messrs. Gibbins's glassworks, had no time to conduct it himself, and who had found himself involved in difficulties with a working partner. Mason soon mastered the work, brought the business into a prosperous condition, and was encouraged to expect share in it for himself. To his bitter disappointment, he wis deceived; the business was sold without his knowledge, and though the purchaser offered him a large salary to remain as manager, he refused, and was consequently thrown oat of employment. This calamity was the beginning of his fortunes, by making a new opening of an unexpected kind. The writer has often heard him tell how it came about, and the story is so interesting and characteristic that it is worth repeating.
It was in 1822, when he was about twenty-seven years old, that he left the gilt toy business in Legge Street, with neither money in hand nor work in prospect. He was walking in the street, thinking, not over-cheerfully, on what had best be done next, when a gentleman, an entire stranger, stepped up to him, and said, " Mr. Mason 1" "Yes," was the answer. "You ire now, I understand, without employment?" "Yes," again. "Then I know someone who wants just such a man as you, and I will introduce you to him. Will you meet me to-morrow morning at Mr. Harrison's, in Lancaster Street?" "I will," said Mason, and so they parted. This good Samaritan proved to be Mr. Heeley, a steel toy maker, who probably knew Mason from having seen him at Belmont Row Wesleyin Chapel, which he attended: the Heeleys, an old and respected Birmingham family, being leading Wesleyans. Next morning) as appointed, the two met at Mr. Harrison's, and Mr. Heeley promptly opened the business by saying, " There, Mr. Harrison, I have brought you the very man you want." Mr. Harrison was a plain, blunt, old-fashioned man, with much of the humour which characterised his class in Birmingham. He did not close very briskly with Mr. Heeley's offer of his new-found protégée. "I have had a good many young men come here (he said), but they were afraid of dirtying their fingers." At this Mason, who had kept silence, involuntarily opened his hands, looked at them, and speaking to himself rather than to the others, said quietly, " Are you ashamed of dirtying yourselres to get your own living?" It was an unstudied touch of nature, and Mr. Harrison, who had a keen insight into character, WJS instantly struck by it. A few enquiries satisfied him of Mason's capacity and of his willingness to work. Before they parted an agreement had been come to, characteristic on both sides. "I have built myself a cottage," said Mr. Harrison," and am going to live at it. I shall take my furniture out of this house you come and live in it, and bring your furniture in." It is now close upon sixty years since this bargain was entered into, and the business of split-ring making, with a great pen trade added to it, is still continued on the same spot, for Mr. Harrison's house forms part of Sir Josiah Mason's works in Lancaster Street, now transferred to Perry & Co. Twelve months later Mr. Harrison, desiring to retire from business, sold his trade to Mason for £500, which was paid out of the first year's profits; but though the business connection was thus closed, the intimate association between the two–fatherly on Harrison's part, filial on Mason's–continued with increasing affection until Mr. Harrison's death. Even in his own old age, Sir Josiah could never speak of his early friend and benefactor –and he often spoke of him–without visible emotion. Thus, in 1824, at the age of twenty-eight, Mason started as his own master, with an excellent and profitable trade, which he rapidly developed by his industry and inventive skill. His most important invention was that of machinery for bevelling hoop-rings. These rings were then sold at sixpence each, and so great was the speed and economy of production increased by the machine that in the first year Mason gained £1,000 by the use oT it. His earliest machine, constructed in 1825, is now –or was until very lately–still at work in Lancaster Street.
To the split-ring business Mason quickly added that of steel-pen making. Mr. Harrison, who was an intimate friend of Dr. Priestley, had made barrel pens, laboriously shaped and filed, for the great philosopher, as far back as 1780; but it was not until 1825 that steel pens–the'* slip " pens now so commonly used–began to be made as articles of commerce. The first maker of these pens was Mr. James Perry, of Manchester, and afterwards of London, who in point of time slightly anticipated Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Gillott, respectively the earliest Birmingham makers. Perry's pens, however, differed from theirs in not being wholly machine made: the slit instead of being formed in a press, was made by cracking the pen with a blow from a hammer, after hardening, at a place previously marked in the soft steel. The method of making the slit is the great feature of the pen trade. Slitting by machinery is the essential feature of the manufacture as now carried on, and the question of real interest in the trade is not who was the first maker of pens of steel, but who first made pens by machinery as a mechanical process, and as articles of common use. The credit of this great improvement belongs to three persons, all of them working in Birmingham–Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Gillott, and Mr. Mason. The first-named had slightly the priority in point of date. The others began about the same time : both, unknown to each other, biting upon the plan of making the slit by the press and the die, instead of by means of cracking. There was, however, one considerable difference between them. The names of Mitchell and Gillott became widely known as pen-makers, while that of Mason remained obscured, for the reason that while the others dealt in pens on their own account, Mason for many years supplied to Mr. Perry all he made, and stamped them solely with Perry's name. His introduction to Mr. Perry happened in a curious way. The following account of it is transcribed from a note written by Sir Josiah Mason himself, and is therefore authentic:–" About 1829, I saw in a book-shop window in Bull Street, Birmingham (Mr. Peart's) nine slip pens on a card, marked three-and-sixpence! The novelty, and the thought of Mr. Harrison's pen, induced me to go in. Mr. Peart was writing with one of the pens. He said it was ' a regular pin,' I instantly saw that I could improve upon it, and offered to buy one of the pens. Mr. Peart, however, would not sell less than the whole card ; but at last he consented to sell me the one he was writing with, and so I bought the' pin' for sixpence. I returned home, made three pens that evening, and enclosed the best of the three in a letter–for which I paid ninepence postage. I had not the slightest knowledge of the maker, but having with difficulty made out the lettering stamped upon the pen I had purchased to be ' Perry, Red Lion Square, London,' sent my letter there. This brought Mr. James Perry to 36, Lancaster Street, the following day but one, by eight o'clock in the morning, and from that moment I became a steel pen maker. Perry & Co. were my only customers for many years. From our first interview to the present time [this was written in 1873] I have been the sole and only maker of the Perryian and the steel B pens sold under Perry's name." At first the pens were supplied to Mr. Perry in modest quantities. Sir Josiah Mason s books show that in 1829 and 1830 the supplies consisted of twenty or thirty gross at a time. The first lot of one hundred gross at one order was despatched to London on the 20th November, 1830. In 1831 pens to the value of ,£1,421 were made by Mr. Mason for Mr. Perry, and from that time the trade grew with wonderful rapidity until, when in latter years his works received their full development, Sir Josiah Mason became the largest pen maker in the world. In 1830 about twelve work-people were employed in Lancaster Street, and one hundred weight of steel was thought a large quantity to roll for a week's consumption. In 1874, towards the close of Sir Josiah Mason's connection with the works, nearly a thousand persons were employed, the quantity of steel rolled every week for pen-making exceeded three tons, and about sixty tons of pens were constantly in movement throughout the place, in one or other of the various stages of manufacture. When the reader is told that nearly a million and a half of pens may go to a single ton, he may form an estimate of the development the trade has received in the course of little more than fifty years.
The steel-pen trade was not the only industrial enterprise of magnitude in which Sir Josiah Mason engaged. His name, in connection with that of Mr. G. R. Elkington, will always be associated with the earliest development of electroplating. It is needless to trouble the reader with an account of the origin of this invention. For our purpose it is enough to say that the first successful endeavours to apply the process of electro-deposition to commercial uses were made by Mr. George Richards Elkington and his brother, Mr. Henry Elkington. In 1838 they coated military and other metal ornaments with gold and silver, by immersing them in solutions of those metals ; and in July, 1838, they patented a process for coating copper and brass with zinc, by means of an electric current generated by a piece of zinc attached by a wire to the articles to be coated, and immersed in the metallic solution with them. This was the first patent in which a separate current of electricity was employed for plating purposes. Early in 1840 Messrs. Elkington were patenting a process for coating articles of copper and silver by a method of fusion, and also by means of a solution of oxide of silver in pure ammonia, when Mr. John Wright, a surgeon in Birmingham, submitted to them his researches in the use of the cyanides of gold and silver in electro-plating, by which a thick, firm, and white deposit of silver was obtained, closely adhesive, and capable of resisting atmospheric action. This process was incorporated in Messrs. Elkington's patent, and electrodeposition thus became a practicable art, easily turned to commercial and industrial account, and requiring only capital and enterprise to ensure the vast development which it has since received. To obtain the requisite assistance in these respects, Mr. Elkington sought the co-operation of Josiah Mason, with whom he had shortly before become acquainted in a negotiation for the purchase of Mason's then residence of Woodbroke, at Northfield. Mason recognised the value of the new process, and was willing to risk capital in promoting it, and consequently in March, 1842, he entered into partnership with Mr. G. R. Elkington and Mr. Henry Elkington, and at a later period–about ten years afterwards –a new partnership was formed on the retirement of Mr. H. Elkington. The enterprise required some courage, for the electro process was wholly untried, and those "practical men" who always try to hinder improvement, regarded its success as highly problematical. Indeed, as Sir Josiah Mason observes, in a note now lying before the writer–" My connection with Mr. Elkington alarmed my dear and best friends, as they thought certain ruin would be the result of such untried speculation. Many of the platers on the old system called upon me, and with pure kindness cautioned me. I certainly had no idea that I could receive so much good advice from people I scarcely knew even by name." There were great difficulties to be encountered, no doubt. The public distrusted the value of electroplated goods, the trade resisted them, the workmen turned restive; nobody would take out licenses to use the process– it seemed, indeed, as if the patent might run out and yield no benefit to the inventors. It became necessary, therefore, to prove the merits of electro-plating by engaging in the manufacture of plated articles. Here Mr. Mason's organising faculty and business capacity, to say nothing of the great means at his command, became of the highest value. What Boulton had been to Watt, in an earlier period of the history of Birmingham inventions, Mason became to Elkington. "It was not," he writes, "my first intention to take an active part with Mr. Elkington. I desired in this, as I had done in the pen trade, to suppress my name as much as possible; but the great and incessant call for money in the business needed my personal care." So he went to work with his accustomed energy. The great show rooms and workshops in Newhall Street were planned by him and erected under his direction. A manufactory was established in Brearley Street, for the production of electro-plated spoons and forks. Warehouses and show rooms were opened in London and Liverpool, and the country was covered with agencies. The trade, thus guided, grew apace, and the old hand-platers learned that in the new method, which they resisted and despised, when backed by capital and energy, and directed by courageous and far-sighted enterprises they bad not so much encountered a rival as they had found a master, and ultimately a destroyer. After years of anxious labour, Elkington & Mason reaped a rich reward. The Great Exhibition of 1851 gave them the opportunity of demonstrating their triumph, and from that date to this–holding their ground and making successive advances–they have stood at the head of the electro-platers of the world: foremost in quality, in design, in enterprise, in the magnitude of their operations, and in reputation deservedly acquired and most worthily maintained. While connected with the electroplating business Sir Josiah Mason joined Mr. Elkington in establishing extensive copper smelting works at Pembrey, in South Wales, to work a patent taken out by the well-known and ingenious chemist, Mr. Alexander Parkes. Indirectly, also, in the same connection, he had to do with another industry of great importance, the manufacture of india-rubber rings, under a patent taken out by Mr. Parkes. For some time the process was carried on at Messrs. Elkington & Mason's Brearley Street works; but difficulties arose from the hostile action of other patentees, and though the validity of Mr. Parkes's patent was established, it was thought better to dispose of the trade, which was accordingly transferred to the representatives of the original india-rubber manufacturers, Messrs. Macintosh & Co. The partnership between Mr. Elkington and Mr. Mason was finally dissolved in 1856, shortly before the death of Mr. Elkington. With the present firm, conducted wholly by Mr. Elkington's sons, Mr. Mason never had any connection. From 1865 until 1875 Mason continued his business in Lancaster Street as a penmaker and split-ring maker; but at the close of the last-named year, desiring to release himself from the cares of such an extensive concern, he sold the premises to the limited company formed under the title of Perry & Co., by which it is now conducted. Previously to retiring, however, Sir Josiah had established a large business as a nickel refiner, and with this he remained connected until his death. He was also interested to a considerable extent in the Birmingham Banking Company, of which for a short period after its formation he was one of the directors, the only engagement of a semi-public nature he ever undertook, and this only because it was represented to him that his name would be valuable at the starting of a new bank, founded on the ruins of that which failed in 1866.
We have now sketched the early history of the remarkable man and generous benefactor who has been removed from us, and have indicated the main sources of the wealth which a life of enterprise and industry enabled him to amass; and we have dwelt at some length upon these particulars because they are to a great extent unknown to the community–Sir Josiah Mason having, throughout his life, most sedulously kept himself apart from any personal display, and, as far as possible, from public knowledge. We have next briefly to record the noble uses to which he put the wealth he had acquired. These arc within the knowledge not only of his townsmen, but of the nation, for his magnificent donations and their admirable objects, and the wise and thoughtful provisions made for their just administration, are matters of general fame. The first of these great works was the establishment of almshouses and an orphanage at Erdington. Though he was not blessed with children of his own, Sir Josiah Mason had a very tender regard for children, and an earnest desire to promote the happiness and education of those who are left destitute of parental care. It was in 1858 that he gave proof of this by establishing at Erdington an almshouse for thirty women, and an orphanage for fifty girls. This building, which gave rise to the greater orphanage founded in the same village, is now, ia an enlarged form, devoted to the purposes of an almshouse, with which is combined a home for girls who have left the orphanage and have gone into service, but who may be temporarily out of situations. The second orphanage was originally intended < have been established with the aid of a committee of clergymen, ministers, and other persons interested in such work, and with this view several meetings were held at St. Martin's Rectory, under the auspices of the late Dr. Miller. A most interesting history of the project might be written, if our space permitted, but it must suffice to say that serious difficulties arose, owing mainly to the founder's determination that the charity should be wholly unsectarian, and ultimately Sir Josiah felt that if his great scheme was to be carried out, he must effect it unaided. Accordingly, on the I9th of September, 1860, he quietly laid the first stone of the new Orphanage, and for eight years he patiently and steadily continued the work, until the vast building was finished, by which time (1868), he had expended £60,000 upon it. Then, by a deed, executed in August, 1868, he transferred the edifice, together with an endowment in land and buildings, valued at £200,000, to a body of seven trustees, to whom, after the founder's death, the Town Council of Birmingham are empowered to add seven other official trustees, by election–the founder himself, during his life, retaining the position of bailiff of the trust. Since the date above-mentioned, the Orphanage has been enlarged by the addition of new dormitories, a school room, and a dining hall, erected in 1874. It is now capable of receiving 300 girls, 150 boys, and 50 infants. This noble foundation is limited by Do restriction of locality, class, or creed; it is open (o all children born in wedlock; the sole claim to admission being the necessity of the applicant–the only limitation the capacity of the building and the means at the disposal of the trustees. To the last hours of bis active life, the Orphanage was the object of Sir Josiah Mason's peculiar and incessant affection. He visited it daily, supervised every detail of its management, was known to every child in it, remembered and knew them all by name, and was regarded by all as a father as well as a benefactor. Nothing could be more touching than to see the little ones run up to him for a caress, slipping their tiny hands with loving trust into his hand; nothing could be more simply beautiful than to witness the pleasure which their affection inspired in him. He will be mourned by these poor orphans as the only father many of them ever knew.
On the opening of the Orphanage in 1868 the Town Council of Birmingham, in accepting their share of the trust, desired to mark the public sense of the founder's generosity by placing a statue of him in the Corporation Art Gallery. Designs were obtained; but owing to difficulties in the final choice of a
model, and to some reluctance on the part of Sir Josiah himself, the project fell through. A number of gentlemen, however, felt that such an unprecedented act of generosity ought not to go without permanent record, and a private subscription was opened for a testimonial portrait, the commission for which was entrusted to Mr. H. T. Munns, and this portrait, completed in December, 1874, was presented to the town, and placed in the Art Gallery, in which, at Aston Hall, it now remains. Another distinction, much prized by the recipient, was conferred in the same year. A statement of the foundation of the Orphanage having been laid before Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, he received Her Majesty's commands to offer Mr. Mason the honour of knighthood, and letters patent for this purpose passed the Great Seal on the 30th of November, 1872. By special and most thoughtful permission of the Queen, in consequence of Mr. Mason's age and the then state of his health, the ceremonies of personal knighthood and of presentation at Court were dispensed with.
A man, however wealthy, who had given more than a quarter of a million to charitable uses–and who with rare self-sacrifice, had divested himself in his lifetime of the control of so great an amount–might well think he had done enough. But Sir Josiah Mason was not a man of this type. No sooner was the Orphanage completed and transferred than his active brain began to frame new schemes of benevolent liberality. Having determined that he would devote the bulk of his remaining wealth to some great public purpose of an educational character, he consulted his legal adviser, Mr. G.J. Johnson, as to the direction which the project might most profitably take. This gentleman, in conjunction with one or two others, suggested the scheme of a Science College, and it was no sooner explained to Sir Josiah than he accepted it with eager satisfaction, and at once began to give it practical shape. The plan of the college was matured, a foundation deed was drawn up, and was executed on the 12th of December, 1870, provisional trustees were appointed, property valued at £100,000 was conveyed to them ; and then to satisfy the requirements of the Mortmain Act, a year had to elapse before the work could be actually begun. This had also been the case in regard to the Orphanage: but Sir Josiah took care to provide for the fulfilment of bis designs if he should happen to die within the year. In each instance the whole of the property allocated to the respective foundations was bequeathed by will to one person, and with the will a letter was written explaining the founder's intentions, and leaving it to the gentleman indicated to carry them into effect. The death of the founder removes an honourable obligation not to disclose the names of those who were selected as being worthy of such a distinguished mark of confidence. We are now permitted to say that the Orphanage property was, as above described, bequeathed to Mr. Robert Lucas Chance, and when the stipulated year had expired he was informed of the choice which had been made. This communication prevented Mr. Chance's name from being inserted in the deed relating to the College property, and Sir Josiah Mason, therefore, selected another of our citizens, equally worthy of such a trust–namely, Mr. Thos. Avery, and for the necessary period the ownership of the College endowments were therefore bequeathed to him. We venture to say that no distinction that could have been bestowed upon them would be more highly prized by either of these gentlemen. Happily, however, this provision was not called into operation, and Sir Josiah Mason was permitted to witness the realisation of his purposes, and the completion of his great works of charity. The foundation stone of the Science College was laid on the 23rd February, l875,the founder's eightieth birthday; and the building was completed and opened on his eighty-fifth birthday, the 23rd of February, 1880, with an address by Professor Huxley, given in the Town Hall, followed by a banquet at the Queen's Hotel, and by a conversazione at the College in the evening, when Sir Josiah Mason formally transferred the building to his trustees, by handing the key of it to Mr. Johnson, Chairman of the Trust. It was a magnificent gift, for, in addition to the endowment, the cost of the College, erected by Sir Josiah, with the aid of his architect, Mr. Cossins, was about £60,000, and so completely was the work done that the building was completely furnished by the founder, without trenching upon the trust funds. The stateliness and magnitude of this edifice are known to all our townsmen, for it is universally recognised as the noblest architectural ornament of Birmingham. The home of the foundation, however, is not worthier or nobler than the breadth of the trust. Here, as in the case of the Orphanage, the co-operation of the representative body of the town is recognised in the management, the Town Council being empowered, after the founder's death, to elect five official trustees in addition to the six originally appointed by him. Here, also like the Orphanage, there is no restriction of class or creed imposed upon the admission of students or the nomination of teachers–the only limitation in either instance being that the trustees themselves shall always be laymen and Protestants. The scope of the College is the widest conceivable. No subject of instruction is excluded, excepting theology. The first professors appointed, it is true, were limited to scientific subjects–mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology; but with the approval of the founder, the scheme has been since extended by the appointment of professors of physiology, geology, engineering, classics, English language and literature, German, and French ; and the powers of the trustees enable them to make further additions as funds become available.
We cannot, within the space at our command, enter into details of the great works we have thus briefly described; nor can we now venture to estimate, as we hope yet to do, the character and personal qualities of the noble-minded man to whom Birmingham is so deeply indebted. Speaking in the name of the town, and of all classes in it, we close this record with an expression of admiration for the large-hearted beneficence of Sir Josiah Mason, of gratitude for the benefits he has conferred upon our generation and countless generations yet to come, of thankfulness that he was permitted to see the completion of his noble designs, and of deep and affectionate reverence for his memory.
Source: Birmingham Daily Post - 1881
Trev.
We have with deep regret, which will be shared by the whole community, to announce the death of our venerable townsman and benefactor, Sir Josiah Mason, which took place yesterday, after an illness of considerable duration.
Sir Josiah Mason was born on the 23rd of February, 1795, at Kidderminster, in a little house in Mill Street, a circumstance identified with the place, the upper part of Mill Street being now called Josiah Mason Street, to commemorate a benefaction given by Sir Josiah to the dispensary of the town. His ancestors, so far as they are known, were Kidderminster people. But this knowledge does not go very far back–not further than Sir Josiah's grandfather, a working bombazine weaver, who was also a good mechanic, and was in much request as a mender of looms and other weaving and milling machinery. This Josiah Mason had an only son, also Josiah, who was at first a bombazine weaver, then a carpet weaver, and finally a clerk to Mr. John Broom, a carpet manufacturer at Kidderminster. He married Elizabeth Griffiths, the daughter of a respectable workman at Dudley; and the second son of the couple just described was the Josiah Mason whose enterprise and whose noble employment of his wealth have combined to make him famous. There were three other children of the marriage, two boys and a girl; one of the sons died young, and the other and the daughter have now been dead for some years.
The early life of Josiah Mason was hard and unpromising. His only schooling was that obtained at a dame school, held in a cottage next door to his father's house, and this was not merely poor, but extremely brief–so brief, indeed, that at about eight years' old Josiah began to work, and characteristically enough, on his own account. It was a humble line of business–that of selling cakes in the streets. When speaking in later years of his early life, Sir Josiah Mason used to recount with much humour, and not without a touch of honest pride, his entrance upon "trade ;" how he held the position of a sort of middleman, going to the baker's, and buying his cakes at sixteen to the dozen, putting them into a couple of baskets, neatly fitted up by his mother, and going his rounds amongst his regular customers, with whom the little fellow became so great a favourite that they always waited for "Joe's cakes" and rolls, and sometimes gave him a penny extra, as much out of kindness for the vendor as of liking for his wares. His next venture was of a more ambitious kind: the cake baskets were turned into panniers, and were strung over the back of a donkey–loftily named after Admiral Rodney–and Josiah Mason converted himself into a dealer in fruit and vegetables, which he carried about from door to door. So matters went on until the lad was about fifteen, when he grew tired of the trade of the streets, and began to desire more settled employment. One reason for this was that his elder brother, a confirmed invalid, needed company, and in order that he might give him this, and generally take care of the sick brother, Josiah taught himself shoemaking. For a time this answered, but eventually it had to be given up. Josiah, true to the instincts of his nature, was too strict a stickler for quality. As he told the writer of these lines, he bought the best leather, and put into it the best work, and he humorously added, "I found I couldn't make it pay, and must become bankrupt, and so I gave it up." He now devoted himself to improving his education, and in this way he contrived to teach himself writing; then, by acting as a letter-writer for the poor people about him, he managed to earn enough to buy a few books, chiefly of a solid kind– theology, history, and elementary science; novels, and light literature generally, being excluded from his course. In these studies he was much assisted by instruction received at the Unitarian Sunday School, the well-known Kidderminster Old Meeting–formerly Richard Baxter's chapel–and afterwards he attended the Wesleyan Sunday School, where writing was taught.
The increase of knowledge thus acquired led Josiah Mason still more strongly to desire regular employment. He tried shopkeeping, baking, carpentering, and blacksmith's work, and then house-painting, and finally, for a time settled down to bis father's old trade of carpet weaving, which he began in 1814, when about nineteen years old, at Mr. Broom's works at Tinker's Hill. Here he stayed for two years, but trade was bad, earnings were small–a pound a week being about the utmost attainable –and so he determined to try his fortunes in the larger town of Birmingham, to which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. He had an uncle in Birmingham, Richard Griffiths, his mother's brother, and when about twenty-one, Josiah paid his uncle a Christmas visit. This visit decided Mason s future in two respects. He fell in love with his cousin, Anne Griffiths, and married her at Aston Church on the i8th of August, 1817–a union prolonged in unalloyed happiness and mutual confidence for fifty-three years; when, to the great grief of the survivor, it was dissolved by the death of Mrs. Mason on the 24th of February, 1870. This marriage also decided Mason's employment. After living for some time with his uncle, and then in a little house in a court in Bagot Street, he removed to Legge Street, to take charge of a gilt toy–fancy imitation jewellery– business belonging to the uncle, who, being a clerk in Messrs. Gibbins's glassworks, had no time to conduct it himself, and who had found himself involved in difficulties with a working partner. Mason soon mastered the work, brought the business into a prosperous condition, and was encouraged to expect share in it for himself. To his bitter disappointment, he wis deceived; the business was sold without his knowledge, and though the purchaser offered him a large salary to remain as manager, he refused, and was consequently thrown oat of employment. This calamity was the beginning of his fortunes, by making a new opening of an unexpected kind. The writer has often heard him tell how it came about, and the story is so interesting and characteristic that it is worth repeating.
It was in 1822, when he was about twenty-seven years old, that he left the gilt toy business in Legge Street, with neither money in hand nor work in prospect. He was walking in the street, thinking, not over-cheerfully, on what had best be done next, when a gentleman, an entire stranger, stepped up to him, and said, " Mr. Mason 1" "Yes," was the answer. "You ire now, I understand, without employment?" "Yes," again. "Then I know someone who wants just such a man as you, and I will introduce you to him. Will you meet me to-morrow morning at Mr. Harrison's, in Lancaster Street?" "I will," said Mason, and so they parted. This good Samaritan proved to be Mr. Heeley, a steel toy maker, who probably knew Mason from having seen him at Belmont Row Wesleyin Chapel, which he attended: the Heeleys, an old and respected Birmingham family, being leading Wesleyans. Next morning) as appointed, the two met at Mr. Harrison's, and Mr. Heeley promptly opened the business by saying, " There, Mr. Harrison, I have brought you the very man you want." Mr. Harrison was a plain, blunt, old-fashioned man, with much of the humour which characterised his class in Birmingham. He did not close very briskly with Mr. Heeley's offer of his new-found protégée. "I have had a good many young men come here (he said), but they were afraid of dirtying their fingers." At this Mason, who had kept silence, involuntarily opened his hands, looked at them, and speaking to himself rather than to the others, said quietly, " Are you ashamed of dirtying yourselres to get your own living?" It was an unstudied touch of nature, and Mr. Harrison, who had a keen insight into character, WJS instantly struck by it. A few enquiries satisfied him of Mason's capacity and of his willingness to work. Before they parted an agreement had been come to, characteristic on both sides. "I have built myself a cottage," said Mr. Harrison," and am going to live at it. I shall take my furniture out of this house you come and live in it, and bring your furniture in." It is now close upon sixty years since this bargain was entered into, and the business of split-ring making, with a great pen trade added to it, is still continued on the same spot, for Mr. Harrison's house forms part of Sir Josiah Mason's works in Lancaster Street, now transferred to Perry & Co. Twelve months later Mr. Harrison, desiring to retire from business, sold his trade to Mason for £500, which was paid out of the first year's profits; but though the business connection was thus closed, the intimate association between the two–fatherly on Harrison's part, filial on Mason's–continued with increasing affection until Mr. Harrison's death. Even in his own old age, Sir Josiah could never speak of his early friend and benefactor –and he often spoke of him–without visible emotion. Thus, in 1824, at the age of twenty-eight, Mason started as his own master, with an excellent and profitable trade, which he rapidly developed by his industry and inventive skill. His most important invention was that of machinery for bevelling hoop-rings. These rings were then sold at sixpence each, and so great was the speed and economy of production increased by the machine that in the first year Mason gained £1,000 by the use oT it. His earliest machine, constructed in 1825, is now –or was until very lately–still at work in Lancaster Street.
To the split-ring business Mason quickly added that of steel-pen making. Mr. Harrison, who was an intimate friend of Dr. Priestley, had made barrel pens, laboriously shaped and filed, for the great philosopher, as far back as 1780; but it was not until 1825 that steel pens–the'* slip " pens now so commonly used–began to be made as articles of commerce. The first maker of these pens was Mr. James Perry, of Manchester, and afterwards of London, who in point of time slightly anticipated Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Gillott, respectively the earliest Birmingham makers. Perry's pens, however, differed from theirs in not being wholly machine made: the slit instead of being formed in a press, was made by cracking the pen with a blow from a hammer, after hardening, at a place previously marked in the soft steel. The method of making the slit is the great feature of the pen trade. Slitting by machinery is the essential feature of the manufacture as now carried on, and the question of real interest in the trade is not who was the first maker of pens of steel, but who first made pens by machinery as a mechanical process, and as articles of common use. The credit of this great improvement belongs to three persons, all of them working in Birmingham–Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Gillott, and Mr. Mason. The first-named had slightly the priority in point of date. The others began about the same time : both, unknown to each other, biting upon the plan of making the slit by the press and the die, instead of by means of cracking. There was, however, one considerable difference between them. The names of Mitchell and Gillott became widely known as pen-makers, while that of Mason remained obscured, for the reason that while the others dealt in pens on their own account, Mason for many years supplied to Mr. Perry all he made, and stamped them solely with Perry's name. His introduction to Mr. Perry happened in a curious way. The following account of it is transcribed from a note written by Sir Josiah Mason himself, and is therefore authentic:–" About 1829, I saw in a book-shop window in Bull Street, Birmingham (Mr. Peart's) nine slip pens on a card, marked three-and-sixpence! The novelty, and the thought of Mr. Harrison's pen, induced me to go in. Mr. Peart was writing with one of the pens. He said it was ' a regular pin,' I instantly saw that I could improve upon it, and offered to buy one of the pens. Mr. Peart, however, would not sell less than the whole card ; but at last he consented to sell me the one he was writing with, and so I bought the' pin' for sixpence. I returned home, made three pens that evening, and enclosed the best of the three in a letter–for which I paid ninepence postage. I had not the slightest knowledge of the maker, but having with difficulty made out the lettering stamped upon the pen I had purchased to be ' Perry, Red Lion Square, London,' sent my letter there. This brought Mr. James Perry to 36, Lancaster Street, the following day but one, by eight o'clock in the morning, and from that moment I became a steel pen maker. Perry & Co. were my only customers for many years. From our first interview to the present time [this was written in 1873] I have been the sole and only maker of the Perryian and the steel B pens sold under Perry's name." At first the pens were supplied to Mr. Perry in modest quantities. Sir Josiah Mason s books show that in 1829 and 1830 the supplies consisted of twenty or thirty gross at a time. The first lot of one hundred gross at one order was despatched to London on the 20th November, 1830. In 1831 pens to the value of ,£1,421 were made by Mr. Mason for Mr. Perry, and from that time the trade grew with wonderful rapidity until, when in latter years his works received their full development, Sir Josiah Mason became the largest pen maker in the world. In 1830 about twelve work-people were employed in Lancaster Street, and one hundred weight of steel was thought a large quantity to roll for a week's consumption. In 1874, towards the close of Sir Josiah Mason's connection with the works, nearly a thousand persons were employed, the quantity of steel rolled every week for pen-making exceeded three tons, and about sixty tons of pens were constantly in movement throughout the place, in one or other of the various stages of manufacture. When the reader is told that nearly a million and a half of pens may go to a single ton, he may form an estimate of the development the trade has received in the course of little more than fifty years.
The steel-pen trade was not the only industrial enterprise of magnitude in which Sir Josiah Mason engaged. His name, in connection with that of Mr. G. R. Elkington, will always be associated with the earliest development of electroplating. It is needless to trouble the reader with an account of the origin of this invention. For our purpose it is enough to say that the first successful endeavours to apply the process of electro-deposition to commercial uses were made by Mr. George Richards Elkington and his brother, Mr. Henry Elkington. In 1838 they coated military and other metal ornaments with gold and silver, by immersing them in solutions of those metals ; and in July, 1838, they patented a process for coating copper and brass with zinc, by means of an electric current generated by a piece of zinc attached by a wire to the articles to be coated, and immersed in the metallic solution with them. This was the first patent in which a separate current of electricity was employed for plating purposes. Early in 1840 Messrs. Elkington were patenting a process for coating articles of copper and silver by a method of fusion, and also by means of a solution of oxide of silver in pure ammonia, when Mr. John Wright, a surgeon in Birmingham, submitted to them his researches in the use of the cyanides of gold and silver in electro-plating, by which a thick, firm, and white deposit of silver was obtained, closely adhesive, and capable of resisting atmospheric action. This process was incorporated in Messrs. Elkington's patent, and electrodeposition thus became a practicable art, easily turned to commercial and industrial account, and requiring only capital and enterprise to ensure the vast development which it has since received. To obtain the requisite assistance in these respects, Mr. Elkington sought the co-operation of Josiah Mason, with whom he had shortly before become acquainted in a negotiation for the purchase of Mason's then residence of Woodbroke, at Northfield. Mason recognised the value of the new process, and was willing to risk capital in promoting it, and consequently in March, 1842, he entered into partnership with Mr. G. R. Elkington and Mr. Henry Elkington, and at a later period–about ten years afterwards –a new partnership was formed on the retirement of Mr. H. Elkington. The enterprise required some courage, for the electro process was wholly untried, and those "practical men" who always try to hinder improvement, regarded its success as highly problematical. Indeed, as Sir Josiah Mason observes, in a note now lying before the writer–" My connection with Mr. Elkington alarmed my dear and best friends, as they thought certain ruin would be the result of such untried speculation. Many of the platers on the old system called upon me, and with pure kindness cautioned me. I certainly had no idea that I could receive so much good advice from people I scarcely knew even by name." There were great difficulties to be encountered, no doubt. The public distrusted the value of electroplated goods, the trade resisted them, the workmen turned restive; nobody would take out licenses to use the process– it seemed, indeed, as if the patent might run out and yield no benefit to the inventors. It became necessary, therefore, to prove the merits of electro-plating by engaging in the manufacture of plated articles. Here Mr. Mason's organising faculty and business capacity, to say nothing of the great means at his command, became of the highest value. What Boulton had been to Watt, in an earlier period of the history of Birmingham inventions, Mason became to Elkington. "It was not," he writes, "my first intention to take an active part with Mr. Elkington. I desired in this, as I had done in the pen trade, to suppress my name as much as possible; but the great and incessant call for money in the business needed my personal care." So he went to work with his accustomed energy. The great show rooms and workshops in Newhall Street were planned by him and erected under his direction. A manufactory was established in Brearley Street, for the production of electro-plated spoons and forks. Warehouses and show rooms were opened in London and Liverpool, and the country was covered with agencies. The trade, thus guided, grew apace, and the old hand-platers learned that in the new method, which they resisted and despised, when backed by capital and energy, and directed by courageous and far-sighted enterprises they bad not so much encountered a rival as they had found a master, and ultimately a destroyer. After years of anxious labour, Elkington & Mason reaped a rich reward. The Great Exhibition of 1851 gave them the opportunity of demonstrating their triumph, and from that date to this–holding their ground and making successive advances–they have stood at the head of the electro-platers of the world: foremost in quality, in design, in enterprise, in the magnitude of their operations, and in reputation deservedly acquired and most worthily maintained. While connected with the electroplating business Sir Josiah Mason joined Mr. Elkington in establishing extensive copper smelting works at Pembrey, in South Wales, to work a patent taken out by the well-known and ingenious chemist, Mr. Alexander Parkes. Indirectly, also, in the same connection, he had to do with another industry of great importance, the manufacture of india-rubber rings, under a patent taken out by Mr. Parkes. For some time the process was carried on at Messrs. Elkington & Mason's Brearley Street works; but difficulties arose from the hostile action of other patentees, and though the validity of Mr. Parkes's patent was established, it was thought better to dispose of the trade, which was accordingly transferred to the representatives of the original india-rubber manufacturers, Messrs. Macintosh & Co. The partnership between Mr. Elkington and Mr. Mason was finally dissolved in 1856, shortly before the death of Mr. Elkington. With the present firm, conducted wholly by Mr. Elkington's sons, Mr. Mason never had any connection. From 1865 until 1875 Mason continued his business in Lancaster Street as a penmaker and split-ring maker; but at the close of the last-named year, desiring to release himself from the cares of such an extensive concern, he sold the premises to the limited company formed under the title of Perry & Co., by which it is now conducted. Previously to retiring, however, Sir Josiah had established a large business as a nickel refiner, and with this he remained connected until his death. He was also interested to a considerable extent in the Birmingham Banking Company, of which for a short period after its formation he was one of the directors, the only engagement of a semi-public nature he ever undertook, and this only because it was represented to him that his name would be valuable at the starting of a new bank, founded on the ruins of that which failed in 1866.
We have now sketched the early history of the remarkable man and generous benefactor who has been removed from us, and have indicated the main sources of the wealth which a life of enterprise and industry enabled him to amass; and we have dwelt at some length upon these particulars because they are to a great extent unknown to the community–Sir Josiah Mason having, throughout his life, most sedulously kept himself apart from any personal display, and, as far as possible, from public knowledge. We have next briefly to record the noble uses to which he put the wealth he had acquired. These arc within the knowledge not only of his townsmen, but of the nation, for his magnificent donations and their admirable objects, and the wise and thoughtful provisions made for their just administration, are matters of general fame. The first of these great works was the establishment of almshouses and an orphanage at Erdington. Though he was not blessed with children of his own, Sir Josiah Mason had a very tender regard for children, and an earnest desire to promote the happiness and education of those who are left destitute of parental care. It was in 1858 that he gave proof of this by establishing at Erdington an almshouse for thirty women, and an orphanage for fifty girls. This building, which gave rise to the greater orphanage founded in the same village, is now, ia an enlarged form, devoted to the purposes of an almshouse, with which is combined a home for girls who have left the orphanage and have gone into service, but who may be temporarily out of situations. The second orphanage was originally intended < have been established with the aid of a committee of clergymen, ministers, and other persons interested in such work, and with this view several meetings were held at St. Martin's Rectory, under the auspices of the late Dr. Miller. A most interesting history of the project might be written, if our space permitted, but it must suffice to say that serious difficulties arose, owing mainly to the founder's determination that the charity should be wholly unsectarian, and ultimately Sir Josiah felt that if his great scheme was to be carried out, he must effect it unaided. Accordingly, on the I9th of September, 1860, he quietly laid the first stone of the new Orphanage, and for eight years he patiently and steadily continued the work, until the vast building was finished, by which time (1868), he had expended £60,000 upon it. Then, by a deed, executed in August, 1868, he transferred the edifice, together with an endowment in land and buildings, valued at £200,000, to a body of seven trustees, to whom, after the founder's death, the Town Council of Birmingham are empowered to add seven other official trustees, by election–the founder himself, during his life, retaining the position of bailiff of the trust. Since the date above-mentioned, the Orphanage has been enlarged by the addition of new dormitories, a school room, and a dining hall, erected in 1874. It is now capable of receiving 300 girls, 150 boys, and 50 infants. This noble foundation is limited by Do restriction of locality, class, or creed; it is open (o all children born in wedlock; the sole claim to admission being the necessity of the applicant–the only limitation the capacity of the building and the means at the disposal of the trustees. To the last hours of bis active life, the Orphanage was the object of Sir Josiah Mason's peculiar and incessant affection. He visited it daily, supervised every detail of its management, was known to every child in it, remembered and knew them all by name, and was regarded by all as a father as well as a benefactor. Nothing could be more touching than to see the little ones run up to him for a caress, slipping their tiny hands with loving trust into his hand; nothing could be more simply beautiful than to witness the pleasure which their affection inspired in him. He will be mourned by these poor orphans as the only father many of them ever knew.
On the opening of the Orphanage in 1868 the Town Council of Birmingham, in accepting their share of the trust, desired to mark the public sense of the founder's generosity by placing a statue of him in the Corporation Art Gallery. Designs were obtained; but owing to difficulties in the final choice of a
model, and to some reluctance on the part of Sir Josiah himself, the project fell through. A number of gentlemen, however, felt that such an unprecedented act of generosity ought not to go without permanent record, and a private subscription was opened for a testimonial portrait, the commission for which was entrusted to Mr. H. T. Munns, and this portrait, completed in December, 1874, was presented to the town, and placed in the Art Gallery, in which, at Aston Hall, it now remains. Another distinction, much prized by the recipient, was conferred in the same year. A statement of the foundation of the Orphanage having been laid before Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, he received Her Majesty's commands to offer Mr. Mason the honour of knighthood, and letters patent for this purpose passed the Great Seal on the 30th of November, 1872. By special and most thoughtful permission of the Queen, in consequence of Mr. Mason's age and the then state of his health, the ceremonies of personal knighthood and of presentation at Court were dispensed with.
A man, however wealthy, who had given more than a quarter of a million to charitable uses–and who with rare self-sacrifice, had divested himself in his lifetime of the control of so great an amount–might well think he had done enough. But Sir Josiah Mason was not a man of this type. No sooner was the Orphanage completed and transferred than his active brain began to frame new schemes of benevolent liberality. Having determined that he would devote the bulk of his remaining wealth to some great public purpose of an educational character, he consulted his legal adviser, Mr. G.J. Johnson, as to the direction which the project might most profitably take. This gentleman, in conjunction with one or two others, suggested the scheme of a Science College, and it was no sooner explained to Sir Josiah than he accepted it with eager satisfaction, and at once began to give it practical shape. The plan of the college was matured, a foundation deed was drawn up, and was executed on the 12th of December, 1870, provisional trustees were appointed, property valued at £100,000 was conveyed to them ; and then to satisfy the requirements of the Mortmain Act, a year had to elapse before the work could be actually begun. This had also been the case in regard to the Orphanage: but Sir Josiah took care to provide for the fulfilment of bis designs if he should happen to die within the year. In each instance the whole of the property allocated to the respective foundations was bequeathed by will to one person, and with the will a letter was written explaining the founder's intentions, and leaving it to the gentleman indicated to carry them into effect. The death of the founder removes an honourable obligation not to disclose the names of those who were selected as being worthy of such a distinguished mark of confidence. We are now permitted to say that the Orphanage property was, as above described, bequeathed to Mr. Robert Lucas Chance, and when the stipulated year had expired he was informed of the choice which had been made. This communication prevented Mr. Chance's name from being inserted in the deed relating to the College property, and Sir Josiah Mason, therefore, selected another of our citizens, equally worthy of such a trust–namely, Mr. Thos. Avery, and for the necessary period the ownership of the College endowments were therefore bequeathed to him. We venture to say that no distinction that could have been bestowed upon them would be more highly prized by either of these gentlemen. Happily, however, this provision was not called into operation, and Sir Josiah Mason was permitted to witness the realisation of his purposes, and the completion of his great works of charity. The foundation stone of the Science College was laid on the 23rd February, l875,the founder's eightieth birthday; and the building was completed and opened on his eighty-fifth birthday, the 23rd of February, 1880, with an address by Professor Huxley, given in the Town Hall, followed by a banquet at the Queen's Hotel, and by a conversazione at the College in the evening, when Sir Josiah Mason formally transferred the building to his trustees, by handing the key of it to Mr. Johnson, Chairman of the Trust. It was a magnificent gift, for, in addition to the endowment, the cost of the College, erected by Sir Josiah, with the aid of his architect, Mr. Cossins, was about £60,000, and so completely was the work done that the building was completely furnished by the founder, without trenching upon the trust funds. The stateliness and magnitude of this edifice are known to all our townsmen, for it is universally recognised as the noblest architectural ornament of Birmingham. The home of the foundation, however, is not worthier or nobler than the breadth of the trust. Here, as in the case of the Orphanage, the co-operation of the representative body of the town is recognised in the management, the Town Council being empowered, after the founder's death, to elect five official trustees in addition to the six originally appointed by him. Here, also like the Orphanage, there is no restriction of class or creed imposed upon the admission of students or the nomination of teachers–the only limitation in either instance being that the trustees themselves shall always be laymen and Protestants. The scope of the College is the widest conceivable. No subject of instruction is excluded, excepting theology. The first professors appointed, it is true, were limited to scientific subjects–mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology; but with the approval of the founder, the scheme has been since extended by the appointment of professors of physiology, geology, engineering, classics, English language and literature, German, and French ; and the powers of the trustees enable them to make further additions as funds become available.
We cannot, within the space at our command, enter into details of the great works we have thus briefly described; nor can we now venture to estimate, as we hope yet to do, the character and personal qualities of the noble-minded man to whom Birmingham is so deeply indebted. Speaking in the name of the town, and of all classes in it, we close this record with an expression of admiration for the large-hearted beneficence of Sir Josiah Mason, of gratitude for the benefits he has conferred upon our generation and countless generations yet to come, of thankfulness that he was permitted to see the completion of his noble designs, and of deep and affectionate reverence for his memory.
Source: Birmingham Daily Post - 1881
Trev.