J. Starkie Gardner Ltd.

Other names: Starkie Gardner and Co. (c.1884-c.1930), J. Starkie Gardner and Jaques (up to 1922)

Active: 1884 - 1976

Function: Art metal worker

History or description: An advertisement for the letting of J. Starkie Gardner Ltd's premises at 267 Merton Road, Southfield in 1957 states that the business was founded in 1752. The origins of the firm have not been traced further than John Edmund Gardner (1819-99), father of John Starkie Gardner (1844-1930), who was a highly successful manufacturer of chandeliers and lamps.

John Starkie Gardner was active from the latter decades of the 19th century through to 1930 working as an art metalworker and as an author. In 1884 the firm was awarded a medal at the International Health Exhibition, London and so Starkie Gardner had probably been active for some time before this. Between about 1884 and 30 June 1895, when the partnership was formally dissolved, he worked with his wife Caroline Gardner (formerly Caroline Cubitt and born Caroline Ward). They were divorced in 1900 and during the proceedings it was stated that she had objected to the large payments from the business that Starkie Gardner has made to another woman, Alice Dring.

From 1895 the firm was run by Starkie Gardner with Lewis Boswell Inman Hamilton and was quite successful. They held a royal warrant from King Edward VII as 'Workers in Iron, Brass and Bronze' and supplied the wrought iron gates and screens for the memorial to Edward VII at Holyrood House. However the business seems to have got into difficulties because on 21 September 1909 the partnership between Gardner and Hamilton was formally ended. Three years later, on 6 February 1912, Starkie Gardner declared himself bankrupt. He was released from bankruptcy the following year on 24 July 1913 but he continued working as an art metal worker until some time in the 1920s. One of the commissions he worked on in this period was moving the wrought iron gates from the courtyard at Devonshire House to the Piccadilly side of Green Park.

At some stage his second wife, Alice Starkie Gardner became involved in the firm. For some years, ending in 1922, she was in partnership with Oswald Hasting Jaques as J. Starkie Gardner and Jacques. This was dissolved on 18 August 1922 and Alice Starkie Gardner continued to run the business solo until her death in 1924, possibly reverting to calling it J. Starkie Gardner. John Starkie Gardner continued to remain involved in the firm although it is assumed this was primarily an advisory capacity as he was in his mid-80s when Alice died in 1924. In a further development, the firm became a limited company and finally an engineering firm. It was wound up in 1976.

Citing this record

'J. Starkie Gardner Ltd.', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/organization.php?id=msib1_1246084054, accessed 05 Jun 2023]