Search results for 'Ken Cavill'

Sydney Technical College and Australian Flora in Art

For 65,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated Australian materials into their art, objects, weapons and tools. From the first year of British colonisation, settlers tried to adapt Australian materials and later, Australian motifs, into their art, manufactures and tools. A century later, Frenc...

Book review: Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect 1700–1850

The subject of this book is coins
that have had their surfaces engraved, repurposed to communicate private and public messages. It covers the whole spectrum of engraved coins created
in Great Britain and forms a cultural backdrop of Australian culture, which pre-gold-rush era was predominantly
a ...

President’s Update

Your Board trusts that you have enjoyed exploring our new website, taken the opportunity to review it in detail and researched past articles. Members’ feedback has been most encouraging! As with any change, there is always the odd issue; we are doing our best to fix them and will further enhance the site base...

An Itinerant Australian Colonial Billiard Table

The National Museum of Australia in Canberra has purchased an Australian billiard table, carved in high relief with multiple panels of scenes of colonial life, and its matching marking board. Its price of $1,100,000 sets a new record for a piece of Australian furniture. The NMA is not known for collecting Austr...

A presentation casket with carving by John K. Blogg, 1915

The box seen here shows the superb carving of John Kendrick Blogg, a successful and entrepreneurial industrial chemist who was born in 1851 in Canada, settled in the Surrey Hills region of Victoria in 1877 and died in 1936. His day job involved making perfumes and extracting essential oils. Family legend has it...

Trevor John Kennedy AM 24.6.1942 – 28.11.2021

Lesley Garrett, a long-standing family friend, fondly recalls Trevor Kennedy's life and passion for collecting, amassing the most important collection of Australian decorative arts ever assembled... Anne Schofield, the source of much of the spectacular jewellery acquired for his collection, has her own distinct...

Australiana Society tours 2021: Bathurst Heritage Weekend

Postponed several times due to Covid-19 restrictions, our plans for a visit to Bathurst in the NSW Central Tablelands, lands of the Wiradyuri Nation, finally came to fruition from 30 April to 2 May 2021, with the maximum
50 participants from five states taking part. Others were unable to attend for fear of not...

Australian flora and fauna on silver spoons 1971–2021

The late Professor Kenneth Cavill’s article published in Australiana1 identified about 50 spoons of Australian and British manufacture, marking royal
and other occasions, with heraldic motifs, maps of Australia or Tasmania and flora and fauna, made either in factories or in craft workshops. Overlapping almos...

Allen Duckworth, woodworker and native timbers crusader

In the preceding article, David Bedford identified four Australian manufacturers of cribbage boards: Grose Manufacturing Co of Brisbane; Clipsal, a brand name of Gerard Industries in Adelaide; John Sands & Co, founded in Sydney as Sands & Kenny in 1851; and Crown Mulga made by A.W.G. Davey & Sons Lt...

South Australian mid-19th century merchants’ tokens

When small change was hard to obtain, some merchants minted and branded their own unofficial currency. Tokens were used as normal currency, accepted by everyone everywhere until British coins became readily available. Copper ‘token’ pennies and halfpennies were circulating in all the Australian colonies in ...

Mary Ives: transported for 14 years

Megan Martin researches the historical background of an 1833 convict love taken, a rare example made for a female convict, and reveals a sad tale of migration and family separation that resonates today.

Tribute: G W K (Ken) Cavill, 1922-2017

The passing of Emeritus Professor Ken Cavill on 25 August 2017 at the age of 95 should not go unnoticed. Many newer members will not be familiar with Ken, who was the foremost researcher in the field of Australian silver and gold of the early 20th century, which he also collected. His articles appear in Austral...

James Walsh, convict artist in Western Australia

London jeweller's apprentice James Walsh, convicted of theft and forgery, drew on the walls of Fremantle Gaol images of European art, perhaps taken from his own treasured artist's sketchbook. After his release from gaol, his later subjects were taken from his surroundings: landscapes and the fringe-dwelling Ind...

A democratic collection. Viewing of the Trevor Kennedy collection

Trevor Kennedy AM has always been larger than life than most people, both in his business career and now his eclectic Australiana collection. Born and educated in Western Australia, he became a prominent Australian journalist, businessman and company director, serving on many company boards. As a journalist Tre...

Going Back to (Harvey) School

I started at the Queensland Art Gallery as the first Curator of Decorative Arts in 1981 ‘wet behind my (curatorial) ears’. The first project I initiated, LJ Harvey & his School, opened in September 1983, following the relocation of the Gallery’s collection to its new building on the south bank of the Bris...

Book Review: John Maynard, ‘True Light and Shade’

Over the last 20 years or so interest in convict artist Joseph Lycett (1775–1828) has steadily quickened and heightened in Australian popular culture through the influence of various published works and exhibitions. He is now held in high regard by art and cultural historians.

Gold Rush jewellers of Melbourne and Dunedin: Wagner & Woollett, Lamborn & Wagner and Wollett and Hewitt

Jewellers William Lamborn, Leopold Wagner and Samuel Woollett all arrived at Melbourne in the first few years after the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851. Recent research has uncovered new information on these jewellers and their firms – Wagner & Woollett, Lamborn & Wagner and Woollett & Hewitt. The new i...

A ‘Poket Time Keeper’, John Arnold, Joseph Banks and Constantine John Phipps

In the 18th century, a time keeper that would keep accurate time at sea was essential to find longitude. Britain’s Board of Longitude offered a massive prize of £20,000 for the inventor of such a device, contributing to major advances in timekeeping. John Hawkins argues that a time keeper by London watchmake...

Joseph Hamblin, cabinet-maker and piano maker

dorothy erickson’s research for her new book Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829–1969 has uncovered more information about objects made in Western Australia and their makers. Her previous articles published in Australiana on Amy Harvey, William Howitt, Charles May and ...

Louis Somme, an intriguing migrant craftsman

William Mark: worker in metals, precious stones,enamelled and inlaid work

F.J. Mole, Brisbane silversmith

‘Ann Wright 1786’ - a love token?

A rum naval trophy: the Colin Rodgers Cup

Silver match boxes of Australian make & interest

Genesis of the Riverview Gold Challenge Cup

Sydney's 150th Anniversary Celebrations, The Big Game Angling Contest of 1938

Kenneth McKenzie, Amateur Cabinet-maker

W.J. Sanders, Manufacturing Silversmith, Goldsmiths & Art Metal Workers

Silver Napkin Rings of Australian Make and Interest

William Proud, Prouds and their Australian Silverware

Commemorative and Souvenir Spoons of Australian Interest, 1894-1994

A Successful Enterprise of the Early 20th Century: The Phoenix Manufacturing Company, Silversmiths and Electroplates

Book review: Kenneth Cavill, Graham Cocks and Jack Grace, ‘Australian Jewellers, Gold & Silversmiths - makers & Marks’, C.G.C Gold Pty Ltd, 1992

Book review: Kenneth Cavill, Graham Cocks and Jack Grace, 'Australian Jewellers, Gold and Silversmiths - makers and Marks’, C.G.C Gold Pty Ltd, 1992

Book review: Kenneth Cavill, Graham Cocks and Jack Grace, 'Australian Jewellers, Gold and Silversmiths - makers and Marks’, C.G.C Gold Pty Ltd, 1992

Tilbury and Lewis Pty Ltd. Manufacturing Jewellers, Silversmiths and Electronicplaters

The Jewellery of Aronson and Company, Melbourne

The Silverware of Angus and Coote, Sutton Electroplate Company, and Perfection Plate

The Jewellery of Willis and Sons of Melbourne

The Jewellery and Silverware of G. & E. Rodd, and its Successors

(Comments on) The Hahndorfer Kranken-Verein Cup and the China Trade

The Jewellery and Silverware of G. & E. Rodd, and its Successors

The Silverware of Stoke & Sons

The Silverware of Magnus Goldring Incorporating Edwin Harrop

W. J. Sanders and Company

The Hahndorfer Kranken-Verein Cup