Hi Trev, et al.,
Thanks Trev, that is very useful regarding the dissolution of the partnership of Elkington and Johnson.
An early partnership agreement of G.R. Elkington that is puzzling me is with Joseph Taylor. The only information I have about this business association is that the London Gazette of 28th January 1840 announced that a partnership agreement between G.R. Elkington and Joseph Taylor, Gilt Toy-Makers of Birmingham, had been dissolved on 24th July 1839. The identity of Joseph Taylor is a mystery. There was a successful toymaker named Joseph Taylor (1767-1827) who registered marks at the Birmingham Assay Office from 1773 to 1801, and became a Guardian of the Assay Office in 1813. The expanded edition of James Bissett’s Poetic Survey Round Birmingham And Magnificent Directory of 1808 (a rare copy of which is in the Birmingham Assay Office Library) contains a copper-plate engraving of Joseph Taylor's illustrated trade card, which describes him as, “J. Taylor, Working Gold and Silversmith, Jeweller, Tortoisehell and Ivory Box, Gilt and General Toy Manufacturer…” with business premises at 35 Newhall-street, Birmingham. Taylor also had a showroom at Bouverie Street in London. He appears to have left £18,000 in his will, so he was certainly pretty successful. However, he died in 1827, which makes him more likely to have been in business with James Elkington (G.R.'s father, an optician and spectacle maker, so also gilding and working with tortoiseshell) or George and Josiah Richards (G.R.'s toymaking uncles). Joseph Taylor's brother, John Taylor, and brother-in-law, John Perry, appear to have continued his business, and I can find no mention of a son (or any other gilt toymaker of the late 1830s) named Joseph Taylor. So, the identity of the Joseph Taylor that undersigned the dissolution of the partnership with G.R. Elkington on 24th July 1839 is a mystery. (Refs. The London Gazette, 28th January 1840, Issue 19818, p. 178, Accessed 21/11/2011:
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/19818/pages/178; Rosemary Ransome-Wallis, Matthew Boulton and the Toymakers: Silver from the Birmingham Assay Office, Goldsmiths’ Company, London, December 1982. Catalogue of the exhibition held at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London 15th -26th November 1982.)
Electro