The President’s Badge of the Essex Society for Archaeology and History is made of silver gilt and measures 2½" (63mm) in diameter. The front is decorated with a shield bearing the historic arms of Essex: three Saxon seaxes on a red background. The shield is set within a circle which has three segments decorated with trailing foliage. An inscription runs around the outside of the badge: ‘ESSEX ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1852’. The badge is suspended by two chains from a lozenge-shaped fitting, measuring 1½" x 1½" (38 x 38 mm), which is attached to a crimson ribbon. The badge, fitting and ribbon together weigh 3.2oz (92g). The fitting is decorated with trailing foliage forming a spiral pattern; the foliage is similar to that which appears on the badge itself. On the back of the badge is the inscription: ‘THIS BADGE COMMEMORATES THE CENTENARY OF THE SOCIETY IN 1952’. There are also silver hallmarks for London 1953, including a stamp with the head of Queen Elizabeth II in profile only used at the beginning of her reign, and the maker’s mark FNS for Frederick Newland Smith.
The badge is kept, when not being worn, in a small wooden box which has a printed paper label with the words: ‘F. Newland Smith, A.R.C.A., D.A.(MANC.), 1 High Grove, Welwyn Garden City, Herts: Welwyn Garden 378’. There is also a handwritten inscription ‘ESSEX ARCHAEOLOOGICAL SOCIETY HOLLYTREES MUSEUM’.
In passing, it should be explained that the Essex Archaeology Society was renamed the Essex Society for Archaeology and History in 1985.
The President of the Society in 1952 was Rev. Gerald Montagu Benton (1881-1959), the Vicar of Fingringhoe, near Colchester, and a highly respected authority on medieval wall paintings and church fittings. As part of the celebrations of the Society’s centenary a ‘Medieval Feast’ was organised at Colchester Town Hall on 1st May 1952 at which members dressed up in medieval costume, Benton himself playing the role of Cardinal Wolsey. From the proceeds of this feast a presidential badge was purchased at a cost of £27 10s 0d. The badge was designed by Kenneth (Ken) Richard Mabbitt, F.S.A. and made (as we have seen already) by Frederick Newland Smith. It is clear that Mr. Benton was very enthusiastic about the President’s Badge as he included it as one of the highlights of his term in office when he retired in 1955. The report of that year’s A.G.M. shows him inspecting the badge with Sir Mortimer Wheeler, then President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Ken Mabbitt (1899-1999) was a long standing member of the Society and a former President (1967-70). He trained at Colchester School of Art, studying woodwork and metalwork. With his brother Harold, he established a specialist woodcarving business H. & K. Mabbitt which provided church furnishings and fittings for a number of Essex churches, including Chelmsford Cathedral and the parish churches at Dedham, Birch, Frinton, Margaretting and Tollesbury. Ken Mabbitt was therefore a very appropriate choice to design the President’s badge.
Frederick Newland Smith (c.1882-1969) was born in Bridgewater (Somerset) where he attended the School of Art. He was a student at the Royal College of Art in London from c.1905 to 1910 and subsequently Head of the Gold and Silversmithing Department at the Manchester School of Art for thirty-three years. He moved to Welwyn Garden City in 1943 where he became a founder member and later Master of the Welwyn Craftworkers Guild. Newland Smith undertook commissions for several churches and his work is the collections of Manchester City Art Gallery and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths.
Philip J. Wise
References:
Andrews, J. 2014 ‘British Designer Silver’, ACC Art Books, pp.528-9.
Essex Archaeological Society Annual Report, 1953 (Transactions XXV, pt.2, p.285).[Minutes of the] Essex Archaeological Society A.G.M., 1955 (Transactions XXV, pt.2, p.290).
Essex Archaeological Society Annual Report, 1954 (Transactions XXV, pt.2, p.292).
In Memoriam: Gerald Montagu Benton (Transactions XXV, pt.3, pp.379-81).
Obituary: Kenneth Richard Mabbitt (1990) (Essex Archaeology and History 21 (3rd Series)), p.5.
Newland Smith, A.R.C.A. (Lond.), D.A.(Manc)', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib5_1217428738, accessed 13 Jul 2024].