posted 11-28-2010 12:13 PM            

It has just a maker’s mark for John King of London, free 1660 and active through to the 1680s. There is a repair across the lower stem but the stem seems to be original and otherwise unaltered. With its rattail bowl but plain stem it seems to be a transitional form between the puritan and trefid styles, something that is not supposed to exist among London spoons. The rattail arrived in England with the trefid pattern. The earliest known trefid, also by John King, dates from 1662. I believe the teaspoon to date from somewhere between 1662 and 1675 at the latest, probably earlier rather than later, before a standard trefid pattern had emerged for teaspoons as opposed to larger spoons.

The spoon had been wrapped in a sheet of paper bearing an old hand-written provenance.

The text reads as follows.
“The last remaining gilt teaspoon of half a dozen, given, along with six cups and saucers, to the Aglionby family, by the celebrated Ann Countess of Pembroke & Montgomery.The above mentioned spoons and tea China were latterly in the possession of the Craiks of Flimby in consequence of their connection with the Aglionby family, to whom (Mrs Yates) the China was returned after the decease of their relatives at Flimby.”

The Countess of Pembroke (1590 –1676) is more usually referred to nowadays as Lady Anne Clifford. She spent the last 27 years of her life on her vast inherited estates in Westmoreland and North Yorkshire having outlived two husbands as well as her uncle and his son to whom the inheritance from her father initially passed. A noblewoman of consequence, and proud of it, she summarized her status in her will:

“I, Anne Lady Clifford, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, Dorsett and Montgomery, sole daughter and heir to the late Right Noble George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, and, by my birth from him, Lady of the Lordship of Skipton in Craven, Baroness Clifford, Westmorland and Vesci and High Sherriffess by Inheritance of the County of Westmorland ---”

The Aglionby family, to whom the tea service is said to have been given, were long standing landed gentry in Cumberland, the adjoining county to Westmoreland where the Countess resided. John Aglionby (1642-1719) and his wife Barbara are the likely original recipients of her gift. One of their daughters, Mary or Margery, married Adam Craik and presumably inherited the tea service. The last of the direct heirs in this Craik line died in 1809 which is probably when the china was returned to Mrs Yates, a sister of the last male Aglionby heir who had died in 1785.

Now, family tradition can be mistaken, but the claimed provenance is consistent with the recorded family information and the approximate date of the spoon. I have been unable to trace the spoon’s history since 1809. When it came on the market it passed through more than one set of hands in the trade before I bought it. It was suggested that it may have turned up at an estate sale in Scotland. The Craiks were a Scottish family, Adam Craik a younger son, so the heirs to the branch of the family which hung on to this piece of silver after returning the china may simply have had it kicking around in a drawer for the best part of a couple of hundred years.

A possibly interesting aside for American readers is the involvement with the Americas at various times of the families concerned in the history of this spoon. The Earl of Cumberland, the Countess’s father, had commanded privateering fleets at the time of Queen Elizabeth I. The Craiks produced Dr James Craik, George Washington’s friend and doctor, and more indirectly John Paul Jones, son of the gardener on their Arbigland Estate. The descendants of Mrs Yates settled in America. Charles Yates who farmed at Mount Pleasant in West Virginia adopted the Aglionby surname (a requirement for inheriting the Aglionby estates in England). His son Frank moved to England in 1867 and re-established the family line this side of the Atlantic.

posted 12-03-2010 12:59 PM            

Teaspoons might be expected to have been made from the 1660s onwards as tea drinking grew in fashion but it is rare to find surviving examples that can be confidently dated earlier than the 1680s

My picture below shows some other 17th century teaspoons, all trefids, just for comparison.

The spoon on the left, by William Swadling, London 1688, is much the same size as the earlier teaspoon that started this thread. The others are by John King c.1680; by Abraham Harache c. 1690; William Swadling c.1690; Edward Harrison or Edward Hubbold c.1695; by SH c.1690 (date letter worn away); and lastly by ID/P c.1690. Most have only a maker’s mark. Of the two that are fully marked, the date letter is completely worn away on the spoon by SH.

posted 12-05-2010 12:31 PM            

I would think the small size of the spoons would have contributed to their scarcity simply because they are so easy to lose, and that there has been so much time in which they could be lost.