6 minute read
Clothworker Collections
NOTABLE CLOTHWORKER: ABRAHAM PORTAL
Jessica Collins, Senior Archivist
Abraham Portal is the forebear of our current Master, Sir Jonathan Portal Bt, the 500 th 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 17 th 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.
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 18 th 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:
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 10 th 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.
The communion set donated to the Asylum for Female Orphans in Vauxhall.
Copyright 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.’
The volume of poems had been dedicated to Sheridan, with whom he claimed friendship (Sheridan stood as godfather to Abraham’s son, Richard Brinsley Portal). Abraham was also close to, and his writing was influenced by, John Langhorne (poet, clergyman and translator of Plutarch’s Lives). It is understood that Portal’s portrait was painted by Hogarth, who had himself been apprenticed to a silversmith (engraver) in his youth.
The connection with Sheridan was to prove especially helpful to Abraham. In concentrating on his literary pursuits, Portal neglected his silversmith business; by 1778, he was declared insolvent. He later re-established himself as a stationer on the Strand, but it was his theatrical connections that enabled him to end his career as a ‘box-keeper’ at Drury Lane Theatre, earning a small income on commission from ticket sales. As a liveryman of The Goldsmiths’ Company, he was also able to derive some financial relief from that company.
Despite some talent in both spheres of his life, Portal failed to attract the support of theatre managers necessary to make a commercial success of his writing. He ended his days in humble circumstances, survived by one of his two sons and three daughters from his second marriage to Elizabeth Bedwell. Had he maintained his focus on his original craft, his career might have ended differently. His surviving work, and his credentials as a pupil of de Lamerie, are worthy of some note, and we are delighted to have recently welcomed into our plate collection a George III silver gilt cup and cover, originally made by Portal for the Earl of Harewood. It has been generously presented by the present Master, in memory of his ancestor.
The Portal Cup, a new addition to the collection at Clothworkers' Hall.
DESIGNER BOOKBINDINGS
Hannah Dunmow, Archivist
The Company supports the endangered craft of hand bookbinding by commissioning fine bindings from established bookbinders, and also by supporting and funding initiatives by Designer Bookbinders as well as The Queen’s Bindery Apprenticeship Scheme (QBAS).
In addition, Immediate Past Master John Coombe-Tennant recently presented a finely bound Great Twelve Visitors’ Book, which features a series of intricate and exquisite pen and ink drawings of architectural features of Clothworkers’ Hall by Emma Bashforth. The Visitors’ Book is bound in full morocco with onlaid leathers in a strapwork design inspired by the ironwork entrance gates of our Hall – gates that survived the Blitz in 1941. The book was bound by Bayntun’s of Bath, and is currently on display in the Entrance Hall along with our other fine bindings. It will be signed by guests at the Great Twelve Masters’ and Prime Wardens’ Dinner each year, a tradition initiated by Neil Foster (Master, 2009- 10), who presented The Company with a clothmaking-inspired Visitors’ Book as his own Master’s gift.
Since our last magazine was published, another of our commissioned bookbindings has been delivered to the Hall. Mr Kilburn’s Calicos – a limited edition print by the Fleece Press – is an album (more like a notebook, measuring 113 x 185 mm) of 62 fabric designs, with some notes about quantities ordered and colourways, dating from 1799 or 1800. It was subsequently used as a scrapbook by Kilburn’s grandson or great grandson, who pasted in pictures and drew lions, tigers, soldiers and more in it! The book is accompanied by a contemporary pamphlet containing 16 patterns by textile print designer Sholto Drumlanrig, taken from Kilburn’s original sketches.
William Kilburn was apprenticed to a calico printer in Dublin and moved to Bermondsey in 1777. He was skilled at designing fabric patterns. After managing a calico-printing factory in Wallington, Surrey, he later bought it out. He went on to marry the daughter of a Cheapside cloth merchant who sold his fabric. Kilburn’s designs were highly desirable, and the Victoria and Albert Museum holds an album of his chintz designs (c. 1788-92). The designs in this notebook, however, are more complex, smaller and more colourful – the final decade of the century saw developments in dyeing processes, a move away from large copper printing plates to smaller woodblocks (dictating a smaller unit for the repeat patterns), a need to simplify the production process, and a growing interest in natural history specimens.
Ann Tout has created a delightful and charming binding showing rolls of fabric with brightened versions of Mr Kilburn’s patterns on them. The rolls give a sense of movement, with different thicknesses and a play of lighter and darker colours. They wrap all across the cover, including one on the spine, and roll round into the endpapers inside.
The patterned rolls are painted in watercolour with a little pen work and covered with a single piece of transparent vellum: demanding but very enjoyable work she tells us. The roll-holders are made from different colour leather onlays.
We are very pleased that Ann also gave us her preparatory sketches, designs and paintings. We endeavour to obtain these papers whenever possible for retention in the archives, as they add to the story of the finished binding, showing the development of ideas and often rejected designs, and are available for researchers to consult in the future.
Ann Tout’s new designer bookbinding, in which you can catch a glimpse of pages from Mr Kilburn’s Calicos.
