H. Blairman & Sons Ltd

Designed by William Butterfield (1814-1900)

Marked for John Keith (active from 1824)

Silver (left)

Height: 23.5 cm

English (London), 1847

Silver-gilt (right)

Height: 28.5 cm

English (London), 1844

Both flagons with mark for John Keith (see right)

The Ecclesiological, late Cambridge Camden Society, Instrumenta Ecclesiastica, Second Series, 1856, pl. LVI, figs 1 and 4

William Butterfield collaborated with the Cambridge Camden Society, among whose founders he had many personal friends.  He prepared a great number of illustrations for the Instrumenta Ecclesiastica 1847 and 1856, a repertory of church design.

Under the auspices of the Cambridge Camden Society, a scheme was started in 1843 for the improvement of church plate and other articles of church use, and Butterfield, whose offices were then, as throughout his career, at 4 Adam Street, Adelphi, London was appointed the agent.

John Keith was, initially, the favoured silver maker to the Cambridge Camden Society, founded in 1839.  The society became an arbiter of style, offering an Anglicised version of the Gothic. By the 1870s some of the equipment normally found in Catholic worship, was appearing in Anglican churches.

For more on Butterfield as a designer of church plate, see Copy or Creation, Victorian Treasures from English Churches, the catalogue of an exhibition mounted by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the Victorian Society, 1967, Section C and Victorian Church Art, the catalogue of an exhibition held at the V&A, 1971-72, C.

In 1982, Fischer Fine Art published an exhibition catalogue, William Butterfield (1814-1900) Pioneer of High Victorian Gothic Revival Architecture, featuring a range of Butterfield-designed metalwork.