June 2021 – Firebacks

10. “England ruled by an Orange”*

29 June 202131 July 2025 Jeremy Hodgkinson

*William and Mary at the time of their coronation in 1689*

Writing in Old Furniture in 1929, G. B. Hughes noted the absence of firebacks bearing the arms of King William III and Queen Mary II, a statement which my cataloguing of over 800 backs has failed to disprove. Together, and from 1694 William alone, they reigned for 14 years and the strong Dutch influence that William’s tenure of the throne stimulated saw the importation of a distinctive style of firebacks that had been popular in the Netherlands since that country gained its independence from Spain in 1648. Furthermore, English pastiches of the Dutch style were also being produced in some quantity, and continued to do so throughout the first quarter of the eighteenth century.

So this continental fireback with William and Mary’s arms is of great interest. It is a handsome casting, albeit a copy, but close examination reveals that, as might be expected, the arms displayed should be interpreted from a Dutch perspective, not an English one. The arms displayed are, in fact, those of William as Prince of Orange rather than as King of England, Scotland and Ireland, though they date from when he was king.

*William and Mary’s arms as Prince and Princess of Orange* *1685*–8

When was the fireback made? As a princess, Mary’s arms will have been a variation of those of her father, James, Duke of York, the difference being a label across the top. When her father was crowned king in 1685, he had no sons so Mary became heir presumptive, and her coat of arms reflected this change in status with a simple label of three points. However, the arms on the fireback show William’s arms as Prince of Orange impaling (i.e. next to) Mary’s arms without the label, suggesting that it dates to the period between 1689, when Mary had become queen, and her death in 1694.

*William and Mary’s arms as King and Queen of England 1689-94*

As king and queen of England the combined arms of William and Mary were different. King William’s arms were the same as Mary’s save for the addition of an escutcheon of Nassau, the Dutch royal house, and as before they were impaled with Mary’s arms. The Scottish version of the arms was almost the same, though the red lion rampant was given precedence. It is a fireback with this combination of arms that seems never to have been made. Perhaps the intricacy of the carving made pattern makers baulk at the prospect of rendering the shield effectively, though their continental counterpart seems to have done a pretty good job.

*W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 and all that (London, Methuen, 1930), ch. 38.

9. “O what a tangled web we weave…”

11 June 202130 July 2025 Jeremy Hodgkinson

This fireback was sold by a famous auction house in 2008, where it was described in the sale catalogue as ‘An Elizabethan Cast-Iron Fireback by John Harvo of Sussex, 16th century’. It fetched £1,375. When I saw this photograph of it a few years later I was struck by several details which suggested to me that its authenticity was unconvincing. There was something about the ‘chunkiness’ of the various stamps that adorned its side panels that did not seem right, yet its overall design was familiar.

There are several castings of the John Harvo fireback, most with side panels like this one, but some without, and the name by which it is known derives from the inscription below the arms which states ‘Made in Sussex by John Harvo’, clearly readable on early castings but less so on copies. Because the stamps used on the side panels would have to be re-arranged for each casting all the examples I had recorded differed to a greater or lesser extent, unless what I was looking at was a copy made from another fireback. Where I had seen this arrangement of stamps before was on a drawing of a badly damaged fireback from Chailey that Mark Antony Lower had included in his seminal article on the Wealden iron industry published in the Sussex Archaeological Collections in 1849, and shown here.

Of course, it would be a mistake to trust Lower’s drawing implicitly but there are other firebacks which use some of the same stamps with which direct comparisons can be made. The ‘rose-en-soleil’ stamp appears on another fireback in Hastings Museum but it has faint flowers around its edge which are absent on the one sold in 2008. The flower head (is it a rose?) on the same back is certainly very similar. And the same letter E is seen on a fireback in Lewes, though somewhat more delicate in its delineation. The ‘bird’s’ head on the side panel has not been recorded on another fireback, so no comparison is possible.

Where the 2008 fireback really betrays its fakery, though, is in the modelling of the dragon, the supporter on the left of the arms. On Lower’s drawing the top of it is missing altogether so whoever attempted to pass this fireback off as genuine needed to be able make a copy of the head of the dragon from another casting of John Harvo’s original. This never happened, as can be seen in the detail from an early casting also in Hastings. The 2008 version is quite different, there is no hint of the dragon’s wing and the dragon’s mouth extends further upwards and to the right.

It saddens me that the auction house was taken in by this fake, and that the purchaser paid so much for something that it was not.

To read more about John Harvo, follow this link

8. It’s not as old as it seems

8 June 202130 July 2025 Jeremy Hodgkinson

This fireback is in Barbican House, next to the Castle in Lewes. At first glance it seems perfectly respectable with its coat of arms and date. But it is not; the date is spurious, and we know this because of whose arms they are. They are the arms of Baker quartering Farnden. John Baker (1643-1724) was a scion of an extensive family based around Mayfield in Sussex, and in 1668 he had inherited from his father the iron furnace to the north of the village. For reasons that I will come to later, though, it is unlikely that the fireback was cast there. The Bakers had been granted arms which were blazoned as Argent, a tower between three keys erect sable.

Ruth Baker, née Farnden
© East Sussex Record Office (East Sussex County Council)

In 1663 John Baker married Ruth Farnden (1646-91) who was the youngest of the 11 daughters of Peter Farnden of Sedlescombe, a wealthy Sussex ironmaster who ran ironworks at Crowhurst, Brede, Westfield and Beckley. He had been granted arms in 1634, which were blazoned Purpure, between three leopard’s heads Or a chevron vairy Or and gules. Because Peter Farnden’s four sons had all predeceased him, his surviving daughters were co-heiresses. That led to the distribution of his estate being a very complicated business, but that need not concern us here.

Under the rules laid down by the heralds, following John and Ruth’s marriage the arms of the two families were marshalled so that the Farnden shield was placed as an escutcheon of pretence in front of the Baker shield. This arrangement endured until Ruth Baker, as she had become, died in June 1691, whereupon their families’ arms were quartered as they appear on the fireback. So a date of 1690 on a fireback with arms that did not apply until 1691 is clearly incorrect.

But the date is also spurious for another reason. The fireback is one of a small series of backs bearing a particular design of armorials of families of ironmasters. Undated castings of the Baker fireback are known, as are examples of the arms of the Fuller family of Brightling who operated Heathfield Furnace. And a clear casting of one of the latter reveals a date of 1747 that had been carved onto the original pattern in the four corners of the shield. Another casting, at Brightling Park where the Fullers lived, has the Fuller arms on the same shaped back as the Baker ones. So the strong probability is that this series of firebacks was produced in or around the 1740s and at Heathfield, as the Bakers’ furnace at Mayfield had ceased operation several decades earlier. The arms quartering Baker and Farnden remained unaltered for the next generations, but what occasioned the adding of the date 1690 to a casting of a fireback probably made 50 years later, or who was responsible, is a mystery.