A collection of sixty-three Georgian and William IV gold and enamel...

A collection of sixty-three Georgian and William IV gold and enamel mourning rings, one with skeleton motif.

Estimated total weight 304.3gms.

With fitted case and non-exhaustive old inventory list.

This collection of sixty-three mourning rings, that memorialise the deaths of fifty distinct individuals, provide a record of a number of families, friends and business partners who include key contributors to the Anglican-Orthodoxy movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century in the Church of England. The role of Henry Handley NORRIS (1771-1850) and John WATSON (1767-1869) as clergyman in the parish of Hackney, together with John’s brother Joshua WATSON (1771-1855) a merchant, place them at the centre of the Hackney Phalanx and more widely the Oxford Movement. That in particular Joshua WATSON’s links and partnership in banking in the City of London drew in yet a wider field of supporters, explains the extent of the collection of rings. Inevitably such a group resulted in many connections by marriage, and we have mourning rings associated with the families: SIKES, POWELL, SAWBRIDGE, LORANCE, SNAITH, BARNSTON, BRYMER, SHIRLEY, PAICE, HOOKHAM, KERR, WISHAW, BURROW, CURTEIS, WILLIAMS, RAVENHILL, COLLING, LITTLEDALE, SCULLARD, PICKLES. The pedigree of these family links is very extensive.

The giving and wearing of mourning rings occurred widely in the period to the late nineteenth century. Many testator providing funds in their wills to important benefactors for the purchase of a ring to be worn during the period of mourning. Such a benefaction was an honour and would have been received with pride and the rings would have been worn with great respect. We note that many of the named persons that occur in this collection left wills that gained probate at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and their wills contain details of these bequests.

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