Sealed Pattern to Final Product

[Jelly Terror]

Originally Posted by Luke H

For the big boys like Gaunt and Firmin it may well be possible JT to find out who their chief engravers were. I wonder if it’s listed for Gaunt in their archives?

I’ve found an article online that states Edward Carter Preston was one of their chief designers from the 1920s onwards. Preston deigned the Dead Man’s Penny.

Would be interesting to look into it.

[Jelly Terror]

I suppose those responsible for actually designing badges and those craftsmen who produced the manufacturers' dies from sealed patterns, fall in to two very separate categories.

As with the 'dead man's penny', identifying designers of relatively modern badges etc., might not necessarily prove too difficult a process; Abram Games, Edward Seago, and Ernest Swinton, being a few examples. For those longer-standing regimental devices, however, I should imagine many of their design origins may well be lost in the mists of time.

From the NAM:

'Originally, the colonel of a regiment could put whatever device he chose onto his soldiers’ headdress. But things became more regulated from the mid-1700s. Since then, the design of regimental badges has been controlled by the Army’s high command.'



JT