John Humphris; A name not often found ?

John Humphris; A name not often found in Label Collections?

 Earlier this year I purchased a label from Ian Bedford, his website, Silfren Silver,  stocks a wide range of keenly priced silver and from time to time there are some good wine labels.

The label I purchased, ‘White Wine’ he attributed to James Hyde and is illustrated below.

The makers mark on the back is an I, pellet, H and surmounted by a crown, see below, and Ian Bedford had made the attribution to Hyde on the premise that it was perhaps, an earlier mark of James Hyde from the missing register of small-workers, (1738-58).

Grimwade, in his monumental study of goldsmith’s marks, does show a mark for John Humphris, but the mark in Grimwade is unlike the above and was in script form, the date of entry in the Register was 1762.

As my White Wine label had been sitting on my desk for some weeks I thought that it was time to try to catalogue the label with a correct, (?) note about the maker.

Fortunately, as a member of the Wine Label Circle, I have access to the digital collection of WLC journals since they were first published in 1952. I began my search with simply Hyde but found hits that were taking me to Harvey, then Harwood, and it was the name of Harwood that led me to John Humphris.

The first entry that showed the mark was in a 1962 WLC Journal and then it was attributed, (probably), to John Harwood, see below.

However, the next and definitive article was in December 1988.  Published in the WLC Journal and written by the late Andrew Gilmour, a member known for his scholarly approach to research. He had acquired a label, of an unusual escutcheon form, that had two makers marks. One was the mark in script form identified by Grimwade and the other mark was the I pellet H with surmounted crown. Alan Gilmour drew the conclusion that the escutcheon label he had was surely by John Humphris and not, as past probable attributions were for John Harwood.

I then found a second article in the WLC Journal about Humphris, published in 2017. Alan Richards, a WLC member, had bought a set of 5 labels bearing the earlier mark. To quote from the WLC Journal Alan wrote:

“Interestingly they bear John Humphris’ first mark of I pellet H with a crown above, both letters in upper case. It is noteworthy that they are all for early names: BURGUNDY (1735), CLARET (1735), MADEIRA (1739), LISBON (1740), and PORT (1740). As there are no later labels in the set I believe that it is reasonable to postulate that they were made for a wealthy family prior to 1762 when Humphris’ second mark was entered. In fact, the first mark was probably in the missing register of small-workers 1738-1758. Until we discover a label bearing both John Humphris’ first mark and a pre-1756 or post -1756 lion we will probably never know the exact date of the first mark. Subsequently I have purchased an engraved humped rectangular PORT with a feather edge border (ex Sandeman collection from Woolley & Wallis, 22 January 2013, Lot 755). This, too, has both of Humphris’ marks and is of a good gauge. What is interesting is that Humphris has clearly put his two marks on not one, but two labels – the one described by Andrew Gilmour and the one from the Sandeman collection”.

The Port label, (illustrated below), is quite like my White Wine label, so the White Wine is at least the third known Humphris label to bear both marks.

There is however, a caveat about my White Wine label, there is no clear second mark. You can see from the image below that the second mark appears to be double struck, perhaps over the lion? 

Since I first wrote this article it was subsequently published in the 2020 edition of the Wine Label Circle Journal. A member of the Circle kindly sent me a clear image of this mark and it is displayed below.

 

So, my next comment is a question, do you have a label by John Humphris with one or two marks? Having carefully looked for the in name all the WLC Journals I have concluded that there are only a few labels by John Humphris in existence, it would be interesting to find more.

A further aspect of this story is that the indenture papers for John Humphris apprenticeship are dated 1761, I found the document on the Ancestry website, Grimwade also makes a reference to this, his full entry offering an explanation as follows:

HUMPHRIS, John. Son of Edmund Humphris of Latin in the County of Wiltshire butcher, apprenticed to William Turner 7 October 1761. Free, 1 February 1769. Mark entered as smallworker, 10 June 1762. Address: Duke Street, York Buildings, Strand. Moved to Church Lane, Newington Butts, Surrey, 10 January 1763, where he appears as smallworker in the Parl. Report list 1773.

Although there is less than a year between the date of apprenticeship and entry of a mark, it seems that the signatures to both entries, allowing for minor differences, are from the same hand. Humphris may already have been adult on apprenticeship and merely seeking freedom by routine in due course.

My final closing thought is that perhaps this blog about John Humphris will help to locate more examples of his work??

Auctions; Woolley and Wallis at Salisbury are holding a silver sale on the 30^th October, Rupert Slingsby, the silver specialist at W. & W. has told me that there probably 50 lots including bin labels. Stand by to bid!

Ebay sale updates; In my last blog I referred to several labels being offered on Ebay, notably two offered by rulebritannia, (David Buck), they sold as follows; (Click on the price and scroll down the new page to see the label).

George III Antique Irish Silver Wine Label Claret. By George Nangle, Dublin c1790, £183.80. 

Rare George III Provincial Silver Wine Label Sherry Hampston & Prince, York c1790,£126.74

The other notable label was a Phipps Robinson ‘Kyan’ label,

c.1790 SOLID STERLING SILVER KYAN BOTTLE LABEL. £156.00

There have been several other labels that I thought desirable offered on a buy-it-now price. Andy Taylor who trades as andy144 offered at £295.00 a ‘Rare Named Georgian Silver WINE LABEL - Montellado. Mary Ann & Charles Reilly. It sold within a few hours of listing! (to see the label click on Montellado and scroll down the new page).

Andy Taylor also offered other worthy labels; VIN-DE-GRAVE. London 1797. Makers TP/ER, (£135), HERMITAGE. London 1821. Lion Crested, George Paton (?) £135.00. Victorian silver escutcheon wine label for Malaga, London 1842 makers CR over WS, (£195.00).

Gary Bottomley of sunbeau sold an early EDMUND MEDLYCOTT silver MOUNTAIN wine label, London 1760, auctioned for £203.80, and an interesting decanter label engraved "CLARET" to the central field and probably made to celebrate the coronation of King George IV in 1820. This label by Joseph Angell (London 1819/20) auctioned for £155.00.
Gary Bottomley also has two Victorian (1871) labels by Wm Summers, Curacoa and Gin for auction, place your bid now!

To see a list of labels sold recently on Ebay  click on Completed Sales.

 

One part of the history of wine labels is a book written in 1947; ‘The Book of the Wine Label’ by N.M. Penzer.

This book was realistically the most practical guide to all aspects of wine label collecting prior to the publication in 2004 of the ‘Wine Labels 1730 – 2003, A Worldwide History’.

A copy of the book by Penzer has been offered for auction, although the dust jacket was worn, the book was described as ‘GOOD CONDITION IN TORN AND CHIPPED AND WORN DUST-WRAPPER, PUBLISHED HOME AND VAN THAL 1947.   Listed 3 times at £3.00, £4.00, and £4.50, not a single bid has been placed!

Before closing I will suggest to any readers who are looking at this blog and have an interest in wine labels, you should seriously consider joining the Wine Label Circle, it is only a thirty-pound annual subscription. There is a useful website, http://winelabelcircle.org/, here you can access all the *digitized journals of the Wine Label Circle, (these date back to 1952), and perhaps best of all, there are two meetings where you can meet others with similar interests.

Of course, in addition to the above there are regular emailed newsletter and an annual printed copy of the Wine Label Circle Journal.

As I am still on a learning curve with the ‘mechanics of this blog I am still trying to master the ‘comments’ section.  If you wish to add a comment, please do so. You will need to identify your status – anonymous is easy and you can  leave your name to sign off. If you then press the publish button you may be required to complete a verification, (captcha) and after I have checked the comment as moderator it will be published!

Happy collecting!