Today I’m delighted to welcome Sam Mee to the History Jar. It’s always interesting to meet people who have a specialist field of interest. He is the founder of the Antique Ring Boutique (https://www.antiqueringboutique.com/), which sells rings from the Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, and Art Deco eras. He has several guides on his website for buying rings from different historical periods. Sam is a member of both Lapada (https://lapada.org/dealers/antique-ring-boutique/) and BADA (https://www.bada.org/dealer/antique-ring-boutique). Speaking personally, I shall certainly be finding out more about Stony Jack!
Digging up historical artifacts is usually the work of archaeologists. But in the summer of 1912, workmen demolishing a 17th-century building cellar in Cheapside, London, made an astounding discovery. Beneath the floor was a rainbow mix of more than 400 pieces of jewellery that had lain undisturbed since about 1640. This find is now known as the Cheapside Hoard and is the biggest collection of Elizabethan and early Stuart jewellery ever uncovered. It gives a unique insight into those eras.
Evidence of London’s role in global trade
In the early 17th century, the goldsmiths’ quarter in Cheapside, north east of St Paul’s Cathedral, was London’s main jewellery district. It was filled with workshops and showrooms. The trade was regulated by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, which originated in twelfth-century London and was one of the city’s powerful livery companies.
The find was a mix of mostly finished jewellery, mixed in with ash and rubble. The theory is that the pieces had been poured into a box, long since decayed, by an owner, most likely a goldsmith or jeweller (hence some unfinished items), who buried it but then never returned. Some historians suggest this was due to the political unrest of the English Civil War (1642–1651). Others pin the cause on the plague. It’s hard to be sure as the date of the burial can’t be certain – historians put it between 1640 and 1666.
Caption: You can read a lot more about the finding of the Hoard in the Autumn 2013 issue of the quarterly journal of the Gemological Institute of America: https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/FA13-cheapside-hoard-weldon
Among the finds were pendants, brooches, rings, chains, and even a hollowed Colombian emerald fashioned into the case of a watch. There is vivid enamel work, Renaissance-inspired cameos and intricate settings. And the variety reveals two things about the early 17th Century.
First, Cheapside’s jewellers clearly catered to a wide clientele, selling to nobles and courtiers but also to rich merchants and professionals. A rise in the wealth of the professional classes meant an increase in demand for jewellery that had previously only really been worn in royal and religious circles. Enforcement of sumptuary laws, which dictated who could wear what (reserving purple and pearls for royalty, for instance), was also declining.
Second, analysis of the find discovered New World metals plus gems sourced from Colombia, India, Burma and Brazil. These materials reached London through complex commercial networks. The East India Company, chartered in 1600, had opened direct routes to Asia. The Levant Company traded with Ottoman and Persian markets. And Spanish bullion fleets were transporting New World gold and silver through Seville from where they spread across Europe. The Hoard, therefore, proves England’s participation in this early global market economy.
Caption: Gold chain enamelled in white. With interlinking lover’s knots symbolising eternal love. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fashion and symbolism in 17th century Jewellery
The Hoard also shows how fashions had evolved during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Tudor jewellery had been very bold and ostentatious. Think of Holbein’s famous 1537 mural image of King Henry VIII where his powerful stance, multiple chains and solid rings all signal his authority.
By the early 1600s, styles had started to become more refined, due to both technological improvements and wider societal changes. Enamelwork was now more delicate. Symbolic pendants as well as miniature cases reflected Renaissance styles. This was also the start of jewellery becoming more about personal identity and private relationships. Now, jewellery could be used more widely as currency in marriage: gifts cemented alliances, posy rings sealed vows and lockets with miniature portraits could signal loyalty to a patron.
There is also evidence of how clothing influenced design. Women’s high-necked ruffs and low square necklines meant that pendants and elaborate bodice jewels were visible focal points. Earrings grew longer to frame the face. Men used jewellery to decorate hats, swords, buttons and belts as well as standard chains and rings.
Symbolism appeared to matter as much as style – evolving from the raw projection of power found in Tudor portraits. The Hoard includes love tokens, fede rings (clasped hands symbolising faith and union) and posy rings with secret inscriptions inside the band. There were also more devotional pieces and memento mori jewels with skulls, skeletons and coffins (reflecting the time’s high mortality rates). Emeralds at that time signified renewal, pearls meant purity (again, think of the famous paintings of Elizabeth I wrapped in strings of pearls) with rubies or garnets signifying passionate love. Jewellery had become a visual language for expression emotion and loyalty.
One of the most interesting pieces is that emerald watch case. It’s a large Colombian emerald, hollowed out and fitted with a tiny watch. It’s a unique find – nothing like it has been found from the period. And it shows both the technical skill of the gem cutters (to hollow a stone without it shattering) together with the idea of a timepiece as a luxury rather than functional object.
Caption: There’s a book about the find: “London’s Lost Jewels: The Cheapside Hoard” by Hazel Forsyth
There’s also an enamelled parrot pendant set with small gems. The exotic bird is a symbol of the New World and overseas trade, with parrots prized due their mimicry and often included in portraits of the time. The piece shows how jewellery reflected society’s wider fascinations. And its playful design is in contrast to the more traditional devotional pieces in the Hoard, showing jewellery’s growing evolution.
There’s also a set of Byzantine intaglios and ancient gems, some dating back more than a thousand years and re-set in 16th- and 17th-century mountings. In the same way that we are interested in the past, they show the Renaissance era’s own obsession with previous times – the revival of classical antiquity, with gems engraved with Roman emperors and mythological figures designed to signal learning and sophistication.
The role of Stony Jack
You may be surprised that the Hoard survives – and wasn’t sold by those who found it. That’s all down to one man: George Fabian Lawrence (1862-1939), known as “Stony Jack”. He was a surveyor with a passion for collecting stone artefacts and well known for dealing in antiquities.
Caption: The story of Stony Jack is told in this book by Victoria Shepherd.
Lawrence had cultivated a network of workmen with a simple arrangement. If they found anything unusual, they would bring it to him. He would pay them cash on the spot, at a higher rate than a scrap dealer. He often donated or sold these items cheaply to museums, particularly the Guildhall Museum (the forerunner of the Museum of London where the Hoard is mostly kept). When the Hoard was found, he hurried to the site and persuaded the labourers to sell him the bulk of the treasure (a few pieces were kept and sold separately by the builders). He then ensured the Hoard was placed in the Guildhall Museum, securing its preservation.
The Hoard today
Most of the Hoard is still in the London Museum. You can read about it here and see photos of many of the pieces: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/cheapside-hoard/. There’s also a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTIqSp3VTiU
Five pieces are in the V&A Museum, such as this chain: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74076/cheapside-hoard-chain-unknown/
The British Museum has a further 25, such as this pendant: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1914-0423-8
The Hoard will never be sold – but it is worth tens of millions of pounds. It was an extraordinary find by the workmen in 1912 – not just for its value but for what it can tell us about London and British life three hundred years earlier.