stellar_buttons
Jr. Member
Made in London
✅ SOLVED Anyone know more about this Firmin and sons castle button?
- Thread starter stellar_buttons
- Start date
Made in London
- Feb 3, 2009
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| [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1895-1915[/FONT] | [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Firmin & Sons Ld[/FONT] | [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]St Martins Lane London [/FONT] |
https://www.ukdfd.co.uk/pages/button-makers.html#anchora
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islamoradamark
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- Aug 26, 2016
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Reminds me of a chess piece
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Red-Coat
Gold Member
This falls loosely in the category of a ‘livery’ button. The word comes from the French ‘livrée’ (meaning ‘delivered’ or ‘bestowed’) and was used in reference to those who provided domestic service to nobles and aristocrats. Everyone from stable boys to manservants. Companies providing service at a city level could also be ‘granted livery’. So, those ‘staff’ would wear livery that indicated the ‘master’ for whom they worked, with the imagery on things like buttons taken from family crests and such.
The ‘masters’ would not usually wear livery themselves beyond perhaps a ring or a pair of cufflinks but by the late 1800s it became fashionable for family members to sport such buttons. Sometimes they can be traced to an individual family name but they were also generically produced for those with pretentions to grandeur, using borrowed heraldic imagery from established crests. Yours is, I think, the latter.
The castle tower was a common heraldic emblem used in different formats by a number of families. Note the similarities to several of those shown at the link below but also note that, without an exact match, it’s not possible to reliably attribute them:
https://sites.google.com/site/liverybuttonsidentified/home/castle-or-tower
Firmin operated at several addresses in London. The St. Martins Lane premises opened in 1894 and from 1915 their sole London address was Cork Street.
The ‘masters’ would not usually wear livery themselves beyond perhaps a ring or a pair of cufflinks but by the late 1800s it became fashionable for family members to sport such buttons. Sometimes they can be traced to an individual family name but they were also generically produced for those with pretentions to grandeur, using borrowed heraldic imagery from established crests. Yours is, I think, the latter.
The castle tower was a common heraldic emblem used in different formats by a number of families. Note the similarities to several of those shown at the link below but also note that, without an exact match, it’s not possible to reliably attribute them:
https://sites.google.com/site/liverybuttonsidentified/home/castle-or-tower
Firmin operated at several addresses in London. The St. Martins Lane premises opened in 1894 and from 1915 their sole London address was Cork Street.
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stellar_buttons
Jr. Member
- Thread starter
- #5
Fascinating! Thank you so much for all the information!
You’ve been teaching me a lot!
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stellar_buttons
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- #6
Oh thanks i had no idea they only created “livery” buttons
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Red-Coat
Gold Member
Firmin made all kinds of buttons... civilian fashion, livery, company, ceremonial, municipal & uniformed services, parade, military, and naval, as well as badges and other accoutrements. Still in business today as Britain's oldest manufacturing company:
https://www.firminhouse.com/about-us/about-us-firmin-sons/
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