United States or Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At the time the building was erected, there were few "factories," properly so called, in the town, and most of the work of the place was conducted in the low, narrow ranges of latticed-windowed buildings known as "shopping." Mr. Gillott's was, I think, the first Birmingham building in the modern factory style. It was admirably planned, and expensively built.
In reply to Gillott's questions, he said he had "nothing to sell that he could afford to buy." Gillott, by great perseverance, obtained admission, and tried at first to bargain for a single picture. Turner looked disdainfully at his visitor, and refused to quote a price. Still Gillott persevered, and at length startled the artist by asking, "What'll you take for the lot in this room?"
I have that pen now, a cedar stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of Gillott's pens. It is in my inkstand now, I tell you. Anybody may see it. The handwriting on the check, for such the document was, was the writing of a female. It ran thus: "London, midnight, March 31, 1862. Pay the bearer one thousand and fifty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London."
Elkington's, Gillott's, and Hardman's still flourish, and among the brassfounders Pemberton and Son's, Tonks and Son's, Cartland's, and others, go on their way rejoicing, casting, stamping, lacquering, and polishing, and pushing brassfoundry into more ornamental and utilitarian use. Some of our old-established merchants and factors are still with us. The trade of Messrs.
If Johnny couldn't do better than that, I'd lick him. Of course it's the pen it ain't your stodgy fingers oh, no! P'r'aps you'd like to hev a few more boxes o' quills and gold pens and Gillott's best thrown in, for two bits a lesson? I tell you what! I'll throw up the contract in another minit! There goes another quill busted!
Gillott's appliances were of sufficient extent to supply very large quantities, he commenced to advertise extensively, a practice which he continued during the remainder of his life, and which his son and successor still follows up in a modified form. I perfectly remember, more than forty years ago, his advertisements in tine magazines, and on the cover of the "Penny Cyclopædia."
At regular intervals along the green-baize tables were deposited small parcels of stationery, consisting of a large sheet of sanguinary blotting-paper, a quire or so of foolscap, a piece of indiarubber, an attenuated lead-pencil, a dozen of quill pens, with others of Gillott's or Mitchell's manufacture, and an ink bottle the whole putting one in mind of those penny packets of writing requisites that itinerant pedlars, mostly seedy-looking individuals who "have seen better days," pester one's private house with in London; and which they are so anxious to dispose of, that they exhibit the greatest trust in your integrity, leaving their wares unsolicited behind them, and intimating that they will "call again for an answer."
"It's true I ain't one o' the color-guard yit," mused Shorty, studying the picture, "but the Colonel sorter hinted that I might be, if Cap McGillicuddy could spare me from Co. Q, which ain't at all likely. Now, Mister, le'me see some pens." "Here's some Gillott's best quality," said the sutler's clerk. "Naw," said Shorty contemptuously. "Don't want no common steel pens. Goin' to write to a lady.
So much was thought of his judgment, that the fact of his having bought a picture by an unknown man was quite sufficient to give the artist a position. I heard a story from a Liverpool artist the other day, very characteristic of Mr. Gillott's firm and determined, yet kind and generous, nature.
Gillott's introduction to the great landscape painter, Turner, has been variously told, but the basis of all the stories is pretty much the same. It seems that Gillott, long before Ruskin had dubbed Turner "the modern Claude," had detected the rare excellence of his works, and longed to possess some. He went to the dingy house in Queen Anne Street, and Turner himself opened the door.
Word Of The Day