Pete Harris, Hand Engraver

24/12/2022

Windows scrapped, tools packed away, my time is done...

19/12/2022

4 working days to go and after fifty years and goodness knows how many tens of thousands of jobs I'm out of here...

17/11/2022

A few have mused that with 50 years experience of engraving under my belt I must have a tale or two to tell, and then today an old friend mentioned a chap by the name of Richard Lawton who was and still is an old school silversmith who for many years ran his business in Hatton Garden.

1981 was a very busy year for the trade and the Royal Wedding between Charles and Diana generated a vast amount of work. So much so my bonuses that year let me put down a decent deposit on my first home.

The Great and the Good were to be in London for the wedding and just about every government gifted the 'happy couple' a commemorative item which would often be silverware.

One day not long before the wedding, Richard Lawton walked into the workshop of RH Wilkins carrying a crumpled up hunk of silver. This lump had been shortly beforehand a very nice silver salver, but it had come a cropper! It was the property of the South African government and was to have been the official gift to the Royal Couple on the occasion of their wedding. However...

The car carrying it from Heathrow to the SA Embasy in London had been involved in a shunt and had taken a mighty big impact to the rear. The salver had been in the boot and got folded pretty much in half, it was a mess.
Our job Richard announced would be to restore the engraving once he had straightened it out.

The silversmiths worked their magic and after some serious heating. bashing, rubbing down and polishing it looked like a salver again but the large engraved inscription on the front had been pretty much obliterated. My job was to go over the whole thing, every dot and commer of it in such a way as not even the South African Engraver who had done the job originally would be any the wiser that his hard work had been unintentionally trashed.

The job was sent to the embassy in time for the wedding banquet and no one other than those in the know would have been any the wiser about the story that wedding gift could tell were it able 😉

26/07/2022

This September will mark 50 years since I started my apprenticeship at RH Wilkins Ltd in Hatton Garden and I feel the time has come to call it a day. So on Christmas Eve this year 2022 my workshop in Ryde, Isle of Wight will close for the last time. Thanks to all who have supported my small business down the years and decades.

23/12/2021

The second very strange year on the trot for me and most other craftspeople comes to a close, hence the Fairy liquid and a scrubbed down bench. Stay safe people and enjoy Christmas, put your feet up!

09/04/2021

A job I did for HRH Prince Philip himself back in 1994. Sleep peacefully Sir.

23/03/2021

The most productive 2 days ever! Until all the lockdowns began a year ago I was always choca with work and so struggled to find time to lavish sufficient TLC on my tools. There are something like 40 gravers, scorpers, and other less often used carving tools on my bench and had anyone in the know looked closely at them, they might have realised that many were unusable being worn out to the point of knackered. Some have been kicking around my bench unused for years and even decades which is a terrible admission.
Well they're not knackered anymore. With time to spend all are now in good order. Some had to be heated and tempered having gone soft, some heated and bent into usable cranked shapes, all got polished to make them pleasing to handle and all have been ground on oilstones to achieve good faces and cutting edges. Would go so far as to say my kit has never been in such good and usable shape; am well happy!
Only casualty is my shredded fingers but the job was worth it. 😊

23/12/2020

I'm all done, my last job for 2020 has been collected, bench is swept down, am ready to leave and lock the door on this strangest of years.

It was 1972 when I started my apprenticeship so 48 years in the trade and in that time so much has changed. Gone are the big outfits like Garrard & Co of 112 Regent Street which was a store I used to visit 5 days a week and collect work in a canvas holdall from all the departments, jewellery, watches, military, then head back to RH Wilkins in Hatton Garden on a No19 or a No38 bus. Often there would be boxes of 9ct and 18ct Rolex and Omega watches in that canvas bag but it was always the bus I was expected to use as the gaffer Ray would not pay for a taxi! Mappin and Webb, Asprey's, Carrington's, all pretty big outfits and most had a visit daily to pick up and collect, yet most have gone in all but name. These days I only work for family businesses, no chains, it's more like a cottage industry when compared to what used to be. Is that a good or bad thing? I think we need a healthy mix of big and small and these days we only have the relatively small.

Back in '72 I do not recall ever coming across a lady jeweller or silversmith, it was an almost exclusively male trade. These days no longer are the ladies just 'front of house' but most of the younger craftspeople I work with are women and their numbers include my own daughter Vickie. I'm all for equality and the ladies bring a welcome touch of artistry and finesse to the trade which has to be good.

Covid-19 came close to home back in March when my neighbor who ran 'The Candy Shop' next door to my workshop died, not of the disease itself but as collateral damage. Chris was my age and a very nice man but he had a heart condition and was due to have a pacemaker fitted in the spring. His operation got cancelled due to the pandemic and just a couple of weeks after his due date he suffered a fatal heart attack. He ran that shop most of his adult life and now it stands empty as a reminder that Covid is responsible for way more casualties that the official figures suggest. RIP Chris.

01/12/2020

December is here so may as well get in the mood...

22/07/2020

These are calibration rings for a series of ornate globes. They are 19 inches wide heavy gauge brass and not the easiest of objects to handle as to carry out part of the work entails leaning all the way across the width of them which for prolonged periods is not comfortable but has to be done. Next job to do is a tiny 18ct ring with 70 characters in script inside, its all in French + a shamrock. From one extreme to the other!

16/06/2020

3 months after lockdown began I am back at my bench though expecting to work short hours.

25/03/2020