JOHN WILLMIN
cast of it. We carefully dismembered it and using the “lost wax” process of casting, re-created it in perfect detail in silver and then assembled it.’ At this time he went in for a great number of competitions and kept in close contact with the Company. Both of these tactics paid off. In 1967 he won second prize in the Senior Silversmiths section of the Arts Council Awards for a coffee pot. There was also another business venture. Peter Burton, a fellow student from his Leicester College days was an interior designer for WH Smith. Together with a few others they formed Rhombus Limited, a design group. However, the company never really took off. Nothing may have come with the design group, but 1969 was a triumphal year for John. He entered designs into the De Beers’ International Diamond Awards10 and one was a winner. This is one of the jewellery trade’s most coveted awards. ‘My winning design was for a brooch’, he recalled. ‘It was of an uneven hexagonal shape which came to a shallow point. It was almost like filigree and was set with baguette11 diamonds.’ However, John soon discovered that being a winner of a major award is not always a life-changing experience. ‘I was flown to New York and was put up at the Waldorf 496
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Astoria.12 Naturally I wanted to make hay while the sun shone, so, I took pieces with me, but sold nothing. I also worked hard to sell them in the UK, but in the end the dealer who lent me the stones wanted them back, so the pieces were melted.’ John still has the plaque with which he was presented, but one gets the impression that it is not one of his favourite possessions. A warmer memory of the year was a commission from the Company for a wine cup.13 This, together with other pieces, was required for an exhibition in Scandinavia. John calls it the ‘Filigree Cup’, the Company the ‘Saracen Cup’. So as to make it perfectly clear that this was not an ecclesiastical item, he engraved the knop14 with the words of Usama15 ibn Munqidh, the medieval Muslim poet, author, soldier and courtier from Northern Syria who was born in 1095 AD (488 AH), the year of the launch of the First Crusade.16 These are, ‘A man no more prolongs the appointed term by shirking than he advances it by rashness – Ousma the Saracen’, or put more succinctly by John, ‘It happens when it happens’. John recalls making the piece at a studio he shared with the jeweller Lawrence Wheaton (Laurie)17 in Sedley Place near Bond Street.18 Laurie asked him after a fervent bout of hammering, ‘Are you going to do that often?’ His tactic of remaining in contact with the Company paid dividends,
10. The awards were presented to the designers of the 30 most outstanding entries. In 1969 there were 1,880 designs submitted by 628 jewellery designers from 30 different countries. Six of the winners were from the UK. 11. A narrow rectangular shape. 12. An historic Art Deco landmark facing Park Avenue that is the embodiment of luxury and splendour. 13. In common parlance, a goblet. 14. The central part of a goblet – i.e. where the stem joins the bowl. 15. Also spelt Ousama. 16. Usama wrote several books, including an anthology of poetry centred on famous walking sticks. His most famous work is The Book of Contemplation, which is a part meditation of the inscrutability of God, combined with personal anecdotes as well as descriptions of life at court. Penguin Classics publish a translation by Paul Michael Cobb. 17. They met in Stockholm, where Laurie worked for Bolin, the Swedish Crown Jewellers. 18. The piece actually bears the Silver Points maker’s mark, but is also inscribed ‘John Willmin made this cup’. 19. He was Prime Warden in the term 1970-71.
for in 1971 he was commissioned to make mammoth water jugs for the Company to present to the University of Keele. The following year, there was another commission of which John is proud as this linked his home city of Leicester with the Company. Ivan Tarratt, chairman of the highly regarded jewellers and silversmiths George Tarratt of Leicester, held the unique distinction of having been chairman of the National Association of Goldsmiths and Prime Warden of the Company.19 As the nucleus of a collection of modern silver, the NAG commissioned a goblet to commemorate the two positions held by Mr Tarratt. Of hourglass form, both the foot and the bowl are plain, but the slim stem is decorated with texturing in the form of gilt wires with a triangular section. The bowl is engraved with both the Company’s
Opposite: Goblets Courtesy The Pearson Silver Collection, photographer Bill Burnett John Willmin’s work is difficult to find, with the exception of the goblet that he designed for Aurum, which bears his maker’s mark. Ely Cathedral, with its splendid medieval octagonal Lantern, was founded by St Ethelreda in 673. To mark the 1300th year of its establishment, a limited edition of 673 goblets were produced. Its octagonal base reflects the shape of the Lantern and its wavy texturing is reference to the fact that in times past, Ely was an island surrounded by water. The bowl is applied with a mermaid holding the three keys of Ely, the Cathedral’s heraldic device. We once encountered a single goblet with no mermaid. Asking what had happened to it, the dealer replied, ‘I had it removed as I thought it looked better without it.’ Of course, it was now ruined! Height 17cm. London 1973. Right: Saracen (Filigree) Cup Courtesy The Goldsmiths’ Company ‘This is an experimental piece’, confessed John. He explained, ‘When this was made, I was sharing a studio with the jeweller Laurie Wheaton in Sedley Place near Bond Street. He did not like the noise I generated while hand-raising silver so when I was commissioned by the Goldsmiths’ Company to make this goblet, I proposed something that was less noisy.’ The main body of the piece comprises 364 pieces of cut and contoured tube, assembled as filigree. He took the lengths of tubing, cut them vertically and horizontally, bent it into angles using a chisel and a hammer, then smashed the pieces flat. He turned a piece of wood on his lathe into the shape he wanted for the goblet and made moulds into which he laid the mangled tubing. Then he painstakingly soldered the pieces together. The two halves were gilded and then rubbed back so that the gold remained in the recesses, but was removed from the proud parts. The knop, which is engraved with the words ‘A man no more prolongs the appointed term by shirking than he advances it by rashness’ by the Muslim poet Usama ibn Munqidh, conceals the join between the base and upper body of the goblet. The bowl was spun and gilded before being set into the top of the form of the goblet. The ‘black bits’ are gaps in the ‘filigree’ looking through to the goblet’s darkened interior. Height 19.8cm. London 1969.
and the NAG’s coat of arms. At the time Ivan Tarratt commented he was ‘very thrilled’ that the piece had been made by a Leicester-born silversmith who was ‘making quite a name for himself’ in London. Today, John still considers it is an important piece as, ‘It links me with Ivan Tarratt, Leicester and the Goldsmiths’ Company.’ It was during this era that John had his only encounter with the limited edition market. He was approached by Aurum and invited to submit designs for a goblet to commemorate the 13th centenary of the founding of Ely Cathedral. The edition was limited to 673 pieces and as John Willmin’s aspiration is ‘To keep boredom at bay at all costs’, it is not surprising that he sub-contracted the 497