A Victorian silver four piece tea service, George Angel for George Angell & Co., London, 1849

George Angell (13 April 1819 – 25 July 1884) was the son of John Angell (25 February 1785 – last quarter 1850) and together between 1840 and 1850 they were partners in John Angell & Son, manufacturing silversmiths of 51 Compton Street, Clerkenwell. In his will, signed on 8 August 1845 and proved on 10 December 1850, John Angell requested that his son George 'carry on my said trade of a silversmith for the joint benefit of himself and his Infant sisters and brothers and my . . . grandchild Charlotte Story.' (National Archives, PROB 11/2123) In compliance with that wish, George Angell continued the business, trading until about 1860 as George Angell & Co.

Following his father's death, George Angell entered his first two marks at Goldsmiths' Hall on 15 January 1850, so anything he sent for hallmarking before 29 May that year (the day on which the date letter changed) would be struck, like this tea and coffee set, with the date letter gothic O for 1849/50.

John and George Angell were members of the Angell family of working silversmiths of Clerkenwell, the other branch of which, trading as Joseph Angell & Son, was also established in July 1840. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 the cousins George Angell and Joseph Angell (junior) were independent exhibitors. The latter's father, Joseph Angell (senior) had worked for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell.

The engraved inscriptions 'Registered 7 AUGt 1846' on the handles of the tea and coffee pots in this lot refer to the registration of design no. 781 on that date by Angell & Son, 51 Compton Street, Clerkenwell, for 'Non-conducting fastening for attaching handles to various useful articles such as teapot, dish covers, etc.' (National Archives, BT 45/4/781) For another tea and coffee set with the same pattern of handles, London, 1847, supplied by John Angell & Son to the retail goldsmith Joseph Mayer of Liverpool, see Sotheby's Belgravia, 6 March 1980, lot 502.

The decoration on this set is likely to have been executed by the engravers William Donalds & Son, 29 Artillery Place West, Bunhill Row, Clerkenwell. There were close ties between the Angell and the Donalds families: not only did John Angell appoint his friend William Donalds as one of his executors but their respective son and daughter, Walter Angell (10 January 1826 – 13 April 1894), also an engraver, and Elizabeth (Eliza) Donalds became husband and wife at St. Peter's, Islington on 10 February 1851.