BACK AT THE BENCH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1942, Page 4

BACK AT THE BENCH

SKILLED JEWELLERS OF VICTORIAN DAYS. MAKING DELICATE PARTS FOR AEROPLANES. Craftsmen who made beautifully worked diamond brooches, bracelets and other examples, of fine jewellery for the Court of Queen Victoria are among those who have .come back from retirement to their benches m London workshops to add their skill to Britain’s war effort. They are now fashioning delicate parts for aeroplanes, tanks, ships, torpedoes and bombs, as well as surgical and precision instruments. . Some of them are as old as 80; in one workshop alone there are as many as 30 expert craftsmen between the ages of 60 and 80. At least one principal has returned from retirement with the others. He is Mr R. C. Antrobus who organised the jewellery trade for war work in the last war. It was Mr Antrobus who, in 1930 offered £40,000 for the famous Napoleon necklace which the Emperor Napoleon I presented to the Empress Marie Louise on the birth of their son, the King of Rome, in 1811. When he retired some years ago Mr Antrobus was head of the firm which five generations of his family have directed but he too is now back at the bench with his men,