COUNTR Y LIFE-MA Y 20, 1965 1241

PEWTER FOR CANDLELIGHT

PEWTER invariably appears in i

severely plain attire, its sombre beauty best seen when i1lumined

by mellow candlelight. "Vhen new pewter candlesticks were highly bur­nished, they glowed with a lustre resembling silver, The similarity was so close that pewterers of the 17th century would strike their ware with imitations of silver hallmarks, to the fury of the Goldsmiths' Company.

The earliest reference to candlesticks in the records of the Pewterers' Com­pany appears in their ordinances for 1348. Here it is stated that "candle­sticks and other rounded vessels that belong t o the trade ough t to be wrought of tin alloyed with lead in reasonable proportions, which are, to one hundred­weight of tin, 22 pounds of lead; and these are a lways called vessels of pewter." This alloy became known as trifle metal to distinguish it from the fine pewter used ifor tableware-an a lloy of tin and copper containing no lead.

The weights of pewter candlesticks, always sold in pairs, were standardised by the Company, 17 types being speci­fi ed in records da ted 1612. "Ould

fashion Candlesticks: Ordinarie highe c'sticks, to weight per pair 3t lbs; Greate middle, 2 Ibs 2 oz; Great pyller, 3 Ibs; 5male middel, 21- lbs ; Middle pyller, 2t lbs. 5male fashion, 2t lbs; Great New fashion, 3 lbs; Great bell, 3t lbs; low bell, 2 Ibs ; Greate Wry­t einge, It lbs; Midd. Wryteinge, lIb;

.5male Wryteinge, f ib. "Candlesticks with bawles [knops] : '

Grawnd, 4t Ibs; Ordinarie highe, 3t Ibs; Great Middle, 2 lbs 2 oz; 5male middle, 2t Ibs; Great Wryteinge, It Ibs." Unfortunately heights were omitted ' from the list.

By G. BERNARD HUGHES

I.-DECORATED PEWTER CANDLESTICK DATED

He named the parts of a candlestick as: "the socket where the candle is set; the nose is the length from the socket to the round rim or broad brim set in the middle of the stick on which the tallow drops; the buttons or knops are those outswelling works lnade on the shank or neck of the stick to adorne it; the bottom is all the remaining part of the stick from the flower upon which it stands; the edge or cord or flourish arou nd the bottom; the hollow is the 'in part' or underside of the bottom. There are save-alls or prolongers made in the shape of a candlesocket and are set in the stick. A candle that is almost all burnt is set upon the point of iron set in the middle of it, where it will burn to the last sight of the wick and drop of tallow and much brighter and longer than if it remained in the stick." None

, of these socket prickets appears t o remaIn.

Extinguishers were already in use, described by Randle Holme as "things much used by schollars that read in their beds, to put out the light of the cand le, by putting it over the flaming end ."

In large establishments the chandlery was a department of immense importance. At Whitehall Palace under Elizabeth I the chandlery was in the charge of a sergeant assisted by two yeomen, three grooms and two pages. The grooms "do make wax lightes, and receive in white lights, as they are appointed by the clerke of the spicery;

, for this office is a member of the spicery."

Wax lights and tallow candles were available in nine qualities: white wax lights, yellow lights, mortars, white wax prickets, white wax tapers, white wax sizes, yellow sizes, torches and candles or tallow lights. Every wax candle was impressed with its maker's Randle Holme in 1649 described

the common candlestick with socket as the design decorated by raised work, corded or twist work. The "bottom and flower part" could be round, square, hexagonal or octagonal, and chased.

trademark and cost about ten times more than tallow of equivalent size .

1616, It displays the Royal arms, those of the Pewterers' Beeswax candles served the double

Company, and the name ofWilliam Grainger. Height 9t in. purpose of perfuming rooms in days

2.-PEWTER CANDLESTICKS WITHOUT DRIP-PANS. (Left) Chased stem and corded foot-rim, late-17th-century, 61 in. high;

(middle) gadrooned foot-rim, Imop and socket, about 1830, 8~ in. high; (right) large balllmop, late-l7th-century, 6t in. high

1242 COUNTRY LIFE-MAY 20,1965

3.-PEWTER CANDLESTICKS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17th CENTURY. Corrugated stem with widely everted socket rim, 7f in. high; (right) bell foot with expanded

rim, grease-flange and knoppcd stem, 8t in. high

of poor sanitation . Swarms of bees were beq uea thed to churches for the purpose of supporting lights. \Vax used for torches was tempered with resin to prolong "the supply of flame."

The processes used by the pewterer in making candlesticks included casting, turning, hammering, soldering and burnishing. Casting moulds of bronze, weighty and expensive tools, produced metal with an almost flawless surface. Complete sets of standard moulds were stored at Pewterers' Hall for hire to "qualified masters of the craft," but sets might be the joint property of several pewterers.

The castings were cleaned and assem bled by soldering-an operation requiring great skill to make joints entirely invisible. A smooth, quick flow of solder was essential, as pewter 'of trifle quality melted at a low temperature. Burnishing was for the most part a lathe operation.

The earliest candlesticks in pewter were of the pricket type, a style that continued into the Georgian period. In early examples a tripod base supported the spike or pricket. The candles were moulded with a suitable hole to receive the spike, which at first was in

pewter, later in iron. A dished flange or drip­tray was fitted to catch falling drops of wax.

The Flemish style of candlestick with a socket was in troduced by the English pew­terers early in the 15th century. A high circu lar loot resembling a truncated cone or inverted mortar supported an expansive drip-flange (Fig. I). Directly rising from this was a short cylindrical stem, which was eventually leng­thened and decorated, a.t first with one and then, from about 1500, with .four or five matching equidistant corrugations, increasing to as many as 30 as the century progressed. An oblong aperture might almost encircle the lower part of the socket to enable the candle stu b to be levered ou t .

The bell-shaped foot (Fig. 3) was developed early in the 16th century with drip­tray and stem mouldings nlore decorative than formerly. The socket might be cut with a horizontal aperture, but more often possessed a vertical slot extending almost the entire length. Examples are recorded with pairs of vertical apertures cut below and opening from ciI1cular perforations.

The term "flowered candlestick" (Fig. 4) so often seen in inventories does not refer to

chased or moulded decoration, but to the foot, shaped to resemble a conventional tiower in reverse, with a saucer-shaped drip-tray abo\'c. From the late-Elizabethan period the rim edges of cand lestick feet were strengthened with plain narrow moulding. The 1562 inventory of John \Vycliffc, a yeoman of H.ichmond. Yorkshire, refers to the t hree types: "Six F lander candelstyckes vjs; iii beld candelstyckes and ij flowcr'd candelstyckes, Vs." Flander candlesticks at Is. each are entered in numerous Elizabethan inventories.

As finer-quality tallow candles became available in the 17th century. there was a tendency to rcduce the area of t he drip-pan. Its separation from the foot became a perma­nent feature, and it might be set high on the stem. The bell-shaped foot was superseded by the trumpet shape. The stem might be p lain, closely corrugated or with a bold cushion Imop. The upper stem was encircled with a streng­thening neck rim immediately below the rim of the socket, which by the mid-century might be widely everted and deeply scalloped to match similar shaping on drip-pan and foot. A series of pewter candlesticks Illade during the 17th century are in a design with a heavy base identical to a trencher salt, probably cast from the same moulds. This was topped by a drip-tray, from which rose a baluster or large ball-Imopped stem.

Pewterers of Charles n 's reign made a more ambitious design of cand lestick, ham­mered from sheet pewter. its stem consisting of a cluster of vertical columns arranged to form a square. A moulded socket fitted inside the top of the stem, so that only the narrow horizontal lip was visible.

During the first quarter of the 18th century the cand le5tick foot was domed and might be circu lar, hexagonal or octagonal (Fig. 5) and edged with gadrooning. The central rise supported either a plain pillar or a baluster stem. The socket was characterised by high cushion moulding encircling the base.

The introduction of gold-coloured brass for can'dlesticks and improved methods of manufacture, combined with inexpensive Staffordshire earthenware from the 1770s, adversely affected the pewterers, and between then and 1803 the London pewterers were reduced to less than a fifth of their former strength . A trade catalogue dated 1783 lists ten standardised patterns weighing from I to 2 lb . a pair. Scarcity of brass during the Napoleonic wars gave a fillip to the candlestick pewterers, but the Regency competition of Britannia metal virtuallv ended the trade,

11llls/ra/'ions: Vic /or""; and A Ibe,.! Jl{lISe1ll1l.

4 and S.-CONTRASTING SHAPES. (Left to right) Flowered candlestick dated 1668; taper stick with baluster stem and tapered socket; 18th-century octagonal stick, 9 in. high