This is my first post here. I’m excited to see what people think! I found this Livery button in Alberta Canada. Anyone have any info on it? Thanks!!

[LandenH]

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

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Landon, welcome to TreasureNet, it really helps a lot if you post a story with your finds rather than just pictures. Tell us where you found them, (doesn't have to be exact) and a short story about the find.

 

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[CRUSADER]

Thanks Cru'

As is often the case, the records are incomplete (sometimes lost in the destruction by German bombing during WWII). I have also lost interest in signing up and paying for data, since so many of the information sources that exist have been stitched up by commercial agreements to digitise the records and provide search engines for them.

Nevertheless, from free sources, A.J. Robbins (Alfred John) died on 9th January 1934 so even if he had lived to be 100 and started his business when he was 20, it couldn’t have been in operation before the mid-1850s at the very earliest. First mention of the business as “A.J. Robbins” (that I could find) was 1891 and it couldn’t have been inherited from his father under that name since his father was Edward Victor Robbins. The military buttons with his backmark which can be reliably dated seem to be from around 1900 plus or minus a bit.

Alfred seems to have had two related businesses. He was listed as a “Manchester Warehouseman” (ie a wholesaler for “Manchester cloth”, the term used for a particular kind of cotton fabric produced in Manchester) and a manufacturer of “tailor’s trimmings” (which would include things like buttons). The cloth business may have originally been in his name but I can only find a record for it in partnership with Arthur Herbert Dawson Hayles at a different address (4 Boyle Street, Savile Row, London) and under a different name (A.J. Robbins & Hayles) with that partnership being dissolved on 31st December 1933, just before Alfred’s death. The tailor’s trimmings business was in Alfred’s name only as “A.J. Robbins” at 14 Mill Street.

It could be either heron or stork, but I lean towards stork because heraldic herons are usually depicted with a ‘head crest’ in the plumage at the top/back of their heads like this (Hearne family), although it’s not a 100% reliable distinction:

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[picture copyright as per watermark]

Agreed, & as I'm sure your aware by this period the Heraldic 'distinctions' were less important than when it came from the landed gentry. This period saw a massive boom in the industrialist & self made man. These people had no links to Heraldry so it was less important to get it 'right', just get a 'look' that passed in society that they had made it. This is why it's so hard to point it to any Family name. Only research at the OP's end might get lucky & match up a name. My point is, these were a lot more generic off the shelf than individually Commissioned by this period.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Welcome to Treasurenet, and congrats on a nice looking button.