Quote:
Originally Posted by dumdum
Hi
Been mulling over this question and I think that while the designs may have been registered to a particular jeweller, C. M. Bay (Cecil Montagu BAY) would have produced the dies for them.
Bay made an awful lot of the Reinforcement badges that we still see today. I was once told by someone who knew him well that, many years after the end of the war, Cecil Bay would take his small boat over to the place he had in the Marlborough Sounds (South Island) and drop kerosene tins full of badges over the side of the boat.....
The same guy told me that he preferred to hire women for the job of cutting out the design as they were more careful than the men who would cheerfully chop off the tips of fernleaves on a design, thereby ruining the badge.
Maybe they were also cheaper to employ?
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I don't mind a good story, but sometimes its just a story, sometimes it has some truth to it.
Cecil Bay was prosecuted in October 1917, for "allowing females to perform saw-piercing work on other than base metals. The women were engaged-on gold and silver. work, which was usually done by men. This constituted a breach of the jewellers award."
Cecil Bay's shop was at 66 Willis Street in Wellington, he employed Male tradesmen at about £3 a week, whereas women and boys were paid about £1 a week.