11 Jun 2022 (#066)
Update on Family Tree Post #11. I finally saw the family gold 
at the Ashmolean. A small room full of gold things, and a big room full of silver things, bequeathed by cousin Michael Wellby.
Michael was a descendant of the wife of James Larard the clockmaker (post 35), whose family made the Dunkirk little ship (post 17). Harriett’s sister Charlotte married George Burrows, an officer in the Court of Chancery, Westminster Hall, and they lived close to the Larards in Kennington.
Their son George was a provisions merchant in Norwood, Croydon, moving in the 1880s to Ladywood, the Orpington mansion pictured in post 40. I’ve found that George had premises by Holburn Viaduct, near an early Nestlé depot, and owned the brewery in St Mary Cray. In 1901, he was at 211 Piccadilly. Their daughter Alice met and married diamond merchant Edward Wellby in Orpington. Edward was also a director of the hallmarked family silver dealers, and a neighbour when at his 9 bedroom country house, Crofton Hurst. In 1939, their son Hubert is listed as an antique silver dealer in Eton. Edward left £152k when he died the following year (around £9m today).
[At the age of eighteen, Hubert’s son Michael took a part-time job in the family business] where he acquired a lasting passion for the beauty and craftsmanship of early silver. He opened his own shop in Grafton Street in the 1960s, specialising in German silver of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which he became an acknowledged expert. Both at auctions in London and on trips to the continent with his wife, Joy, he made many discoveries and acquired many rarities. Several of these were sold through the shop but a few exceptional pieces were added to the personal collection which has now been bequeathed to the Ashmolean.
Artdaily
Update: my friend James Sallis sent this pic of 22 Piccadilly today (2022).
