A very rare set of twelve Charles I silver Apostle spoons, maker's mark RC three pellets above, star below (Richard Crosse?, revised Jackson p. 116), London, 1637

the backs of the bowls pricked WH above I, 1637, each gilt figure with St. Esprit nimbus, comprising:
1. The Master with Orb and Cross
2. St. John with cup of sorrow
3. St. Peter with key
4. St. James the Greater with pilgrim's staff
5. St. James the Lesser with a fuller's bat
6. St. Andrew with saltire cross
7. St. Simon Zealotes with a saw
8. St. Thomas with a Spear
9. St. Matthew with a carpenter's square
10. St. Matthias with an axe
11. St. Bartholomew with knife
12. St. Philip with short cross or St. Paul with sword
in fitted two-tier leather case with gilt-tooled borders

Symonds family of Axminister, Somerset
By descent to:
The Rev. Benjamin Parsons Symons (1785-1878)
Margaret Dyne Symons (Symons Jeune), wife of the Rev Francis Jeune (1806-68), Bishop of Peterborough
The Rev Benjamin Parsons Symons; sold by order of the trustees of his will and of John Frederick Symons-Jeune,
Christie's, London, June 28, 1905, lot 49 
Spink & Son Ltd. 
The Rev Canon Valpy of Winchester; sold by order of his executors by Spink & Son Ltd.
Walter F. Morice, London; sold after his death at
Christie's, London, June 12, 1923, lot 84
Walter Willson
S.J. Shrubsole, New York (1995 )

Charles G Rupert, Apostle Spoons, London, 1929, p. 10 (where it is erroneously stated that St Matthew is missing from the set).

These spoons, which first appeared at auction at Christie's, London, on June 28, 1905, are stated in that catalogue to have been 'Sold by Order of J.F. SYMONS-JEUNE, Esq., of Watlington Park, Oxon, and the Trustees of the Will of the Rev. B.P. SYMONS, D.D., deceased, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, to whom these descended from their original owner'.  The statement in regard to their provenance is corroborated by the Rev Symon's will, signed on May 19, 1873 and proved shortly after his death, which occured on April 11, 1878.  In the relevant passage Symons gave instructions that his niece, Margaret Dyne Jeune (ñee Symons), should inherit 'the Epergne that was presented to me on my election to the wardenship of Wadham College Oxford by the Members of the College[,] My Worcester China Dinner Service presented to me on the same occasion by the College[,] My large silver waiter also a present to me and my twelve Apostle spoons which have been more than two hundred years in my family'.  He furthermore intended that Mrs. Jeune, to whom he also left his 'Somerset estates', should take the name Symons.

It seems likely that Symons had acquired the spoons from his father than through any connection of his late wife, Lydia (ñee Masterman), who, dying in 1864, predeceased him by fourteen years.  As Warden of Wadham College, Symons would have been the most appropriate among his siblings to inherit them in this way, whereas his two eldest brothers had joined the family tannery business in Cheddar.  Again, in selecting his niece Margaret as future custodian of the spoons, he probably felt that he was choosing the most appropriate beneficiary, particularly as she was the wife of the Bishop of Peterborough.  In support of this theory, it should be noted that Symons made provision for a gold watch which had belonged to his wife's mother, to be returned to the Mastermans in the person of William, son of Henry Masterman.

The Rev Benjamin Parsons Symons was born at Cheddar on January 21, 1785.  He spent most of his life at Wadham College, Oxford, from where he matriculated at the age of seventeen and which, between 1814 and 1823, he served as bursar.  From 1831 until his reluctant retirement forty years later in 1871 he was Warden of Wadham.  He died in Oxford on April 12, 1878.  According to E. Irving Carlyle in his contribution to The Dictionary of National Biography (vol LV, London, 1898, p 280), 'Symons was unaffected by the high-church movement at Oxford, and was in later life regarded as the leader of the evangelical party.  To Wadham he proved an able head of the old-fashioned autocratic type... He was buried in [Wadham's] ante-chapel, and bequeathed 1,0001. to the college to found an exhibition.  His portrait [by H W Pickersgill] is in the college hall'

The maker's mark RC, a mullet and two pellets below, three pellets above, is similar but not identical to the mark RC, a mullet below, three pellets above, which Timothy Arthur Kent in his London Silver Spoonmakers 1500 to 1697, London 1981, p 44, pl 51, has attributed to Richard Crosse.  The same authority illustrates one of this maker's apostle spoons, St Andrew, pricked with the date 1633 (Ibid, pl 50).  Mr. Kent also observes that the RC marks noted on spoons of 1633 and 1634 by Jackson (2nd edition, p 119, lines 13 an 19, which are the same as those on the present set), may also be those of Richard Crosse.  At their previous appearance at auction in 1905, 1910 and 1923 the spoons marked  were respectively identified as St Jude and St Philip.

Complete sets of Apostle spoons as opposed to matched up sets are extremely rare.  Of those known many of the spoons have emblems missing or damaged and the general condition is often worn.  The Symons set on the other hand is in a remarkable fine state of preservation and shows little sign of wear.

There are only four original sets of thirteen recorded:
1.  The Astor set of 1536 (with Blessed Virgin but no Master spoon), now in the collection of the British Museum
2.  The Swettenham Hall set of 1617, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
3.  The Lambert set of 1626 in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths
4.  The Jackson set of 1638 at the National Museum of Wales

and four sets of twelve recorded of which the present set is one:
5.  The Parker set of 1566 which lacks St Andrew and St Matthew but includes St Paul, in the collection of Corpus Christi, Cambridge
6.  The Frith set of 1592
7.  The Sulhamstead set of 1617 to which a thirteen has been added, now in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan
8.  The Symons set of 1637 lacking St Jude