Caribbean Silver in the Colonial Period - London - 3-6-2024

[dognose]

Goldsmiths’ Hall
Foster Lane
London EC2V 6BN


CARIBBEAN SILVER IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Monday, 3rd June 2024 11:00 - 19:00

Examining evidence for a thriving silver trade in the Caribbean islands during the colonial era.

This unprecedented conference has two aims: to celebrate the life and work of noted silver researcher, Robert Barker and, through that, to look at the evidence for a thriving silver trade in the Caribbean islands during the colonial era.

On his death in 2019 Robert made two bequests: to the National Museums of Scotland he left his collection of 57 items of 18th-century Jamaican silver, and to the Silver Society he left a generous legacy, the purpose of which was to encourage original research into ‘eighteenth-century silversmiths from Great Britain, its colonies and possessions and their works’.

The conference will be held in the magnificent surroundings of London’s Goldsmiths’ Hall. It will bring together a panel of six scholars from the UK and North America who will discuss Robert’s collection and silver production elsewhere in British and French Caribbean colonies. Together it will show the islands – Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and others – to have been a vibrant and hitherto understudied area of silver patronage and craft. This conference promises to break completely new ground in silver studies and is not to be missed. In addition to the wares discussed in the PowerPoint presentations, actual West Indian colonial objects will be present and available for handling.

Anticipating keen interest from the Caribbean nations and in North America, the conference will also be available on-line and is timed to minimise the inconvenience of the time-change between the UK and the Americas.

The key-note speaker will be Professor Louis Nelson from the University of Virginia; other speakers will include Wynyard Wilkinson, Luke Delmas, Barker fund grantee Catherine Doucette, Brandy Culp, and Philippe Halbert. Another Barker grantee, Laurence Joyce, died suddenly after returning from Antigua but before his work could be completed and his research notes with be interpreted and presented by John Rogers.

Opening hours: 11:00 - 19:00

Admission: £60 (includes lunch).

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