NOTABLE CLOTHWORKER: ABRAHAM PORTAL Jessica Collins, Senior Archivist
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braham Portal is the forebear of our current Master, Sir Jonathan Portal Bt, the 500th individual to have held this office. Abraham was not a Clothworker, but his unusual and colourful career as a silversmith-turned-poet and dramatist is worthy of further attention. Progeny of a Huguenot family from Languedoc, Abraham’s grandfather, Peter (Pierre Guillaume), and uncle, Henri, escaped religious persecution in France by stowing themselves in empty wine casks aboard an Englandbound ship from Bordeaux in the later 17th century. Henri joined a paper mill, took English nationality and later set up Laverstoke Mill – as a result, Portals Ltd has been the leading supplier of watermarked bank notes for nearly 300 years. Our present Master is Henri’s four times great grandson. Peter became a rector in Derbyshire. His first son, Andrew, was given a good education and followed his father into holy orders. However, despite an obvious love and aptitude for learning, Abraham, a second son, was destined instead for the career in trade for financial reasons.
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THE CLOTHWORKER | SPRING 2020
He was apprenticed to a silversmith in 1734. The silversmith in question was none other than Paul de Lamerie, now regarded as the greatest silversmith working in Britain in the 18th century. That Abraham was not entirely happy with his lot is evident from some early verse he sent to his brother, Andrew, who was then studying with a professor in Switzerland: ‘What sacred muse will now my thoughts inspire Or deign to touch me with Poetick fire? Should I sweet Calliope invite they Aid Our noisy tools would fright the tender Maid; Do thou Great Clio then our toil rehearse, Often our noisy art in Gentle Verse. Six in the Morning from the bed we rise And rub the sleepy humour from our eyes.’ Notwithstanding his wistful tone, Abraham nevertheless completed his indentures and became Free of The Goldsmiths’ Company in 1750. He established his business first in Rose Street, Soho, and later in the Savoy. His clientele included Lord
Warwick, Sir George Colebrook Bart MP, the ambassador to St Petersburg, HRH Princess Amelia, the 10th Earl of Huntingdon, as well as the banker and philanthropist Sir Thomas Hankey (of Hankey and Co, Bankers, a past constituent of Natwest); the latter presented a communion set to the Asylum for Female Orphans in Vauxhall that is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Despite some early commercial success, Abraham appears to have yearned for a more genteel life and simultaneously tried to break into literary circles, producing the tragedy Olindo and Sophronia in 1758; The Indiscreet Lover, a comedy, in 1768; and The Cady of Baghdad, in 1778 – an opera terminated after only three performances at Drury Lane due to the illness of one of the leading actors. In 1781, Abraham published, by subscription, a collection of his poems, but it met with a lukewarm reception. Upon reviewing ‘The Present of A Gold-Headed Cane’, The Gentleman’s Magazine wrote simply: ‘...one of the best, as well as the shortest.’
