The business of Spink & Son is said to have originated with a John Spink in 1666 in Lombard Street, London, and to have moved to Gracechurch Street in 1770. The firm was legally incorporated in the 1772 as Spink & Son and the business later became that of Marshall Spink (1762-1837). By the 1820s it had passed to Daniel Elgar Spink (1792-1853), and by the mid nineteenth century to John Spink (1827-1904), and then to his three sons. In 1903 it advertised as: "Experts and Dealers. Old English Coins, Antique Plate and Fine Jewels" of 17 and 18 Piccadilly, West End, and 1 & 2 Gracechurch Street, E.C., City. (London)
The Spink family is said to have originated at Staithes, on the North Yorkshire coast, 2 kms from Hinderwell. Staithes is 60 kms north of Appleton-le-Street, which is 7 kms from Malton.
JOHN SPINKE (1694-17??) was born on 11 or 16 November 1694 at Appleton-le-Street, Yorkshire. He married Jane Coates (1700-1753) on 29 April 1729.
THOMAS SPINK (1730-1776), baptised on 2 April 1730 at Appleton-le-Sreet, married Anne Taylor of Terrington, 4 miles west of Malton, by licence on 17 April 1759. He was buried on 30 August 1776 at Appleton-le-Street. (A Thomas Spink, born on 12 October 1770, may have been their son, but no children are recorded for them.)
JOHN SPINK (1731-1799) was the second son of John and Jane Spinke. He was baptised on 18 September 1731 at Appleton-le-Street, Yorkshire and married Mary Marshall (1731-1766) at St. Michael, New Malton, Yorkshire on 2 September 1754. They lived at New Malton, Yorkshire, and had seven children, including Marshall Spink (1762-1837), and Jane Holder. Jane had a daughter Ann. who became Mrs Roper and who was widowed by 1830. There was also a Dorothy, who became Mrs Kelloe and an Alice, who became Mrs Crockett.
Subsequently John married Elizabeth, née Storm, (1741-1795) at Fylingdales, Robin Hoods Bay, Yorkshire, on 5 September 1769. They had ten or eleven children and lived at Whitby, Hinderwell and Staithes. (Elizabeth had previously married Andrew Harrison (1734-1763) on 5 January 1762 at Fylingdales.)
John Spink became a Riding Officer of Customs at Whitby and died at Hinderwell, Yorkshire, one mile south of Staithes, on 19 September 1799.
MARSHALL SPINK (1762-1837) was born at New Malton, North Yorkshire, and baptised at St Michael, New Malton, on 13 March 1762.
He was admitted to St Paul's School, London on 16 November 1775, "aged 12, son of John S., Stairds (presumably a mistranscription of Staithes), Yorkshire.
On 21 Jan 1778, he was apprenticed in London at the age of fifteen to John Flude of the Innholders' Company. John Flude held premises at 2 Gracechurch Street, where he carried on the business of Pawnbroker and Silversmith, "lend(ing) money on Plate, Watches, Jewells; Wearing Aparell, Household Goods and Stock in Trade."
According to his tradesman's card, John Flude (probably pronounced flood) was a pawnbroker with a shop at 2 Gracechurch Street in the City of London. There were two entrances to the shop, one on the left for the general public, the right, somewhat more discreet, for the more propertied class. The public entrance has the trademark of the pawnbroker on the left and right posts, three balls with the lettering `Money Lent' under it. Colloquial names for the balls included 'The Swinging Dumplings' and 'The Sign of the Two to One,' the latter intimating that anything brought to the pawnbroker carried a two to one chance of ever being seen again by the owner. The text of the three ovals over the store, reads
| Wardrobes bought in Town & Country | by JOHN FLUDE | Unredeemed Goods sold Whole sale & Retail |
The display cases are filled with unredeemed pledges, forfeited after one year and seven days, as established by law. The word silversmith, while used in the text of the trade-card, does not occur on the shop-front. A pawnbroker (commonly called 'Uncle' ) often advertised his business in conjunction with another trade, particularly that of gold- or silversmith, without actually being a craftsman in the field. Pawnbroking was, in the main and contrary to its portrayal in fiction, pictorial arts, and newspapers, an honorable land lucrative) business, a carefully regulated trade with special charters and laws. The terms pawnbroker and broker were used interchangeably.
Mashall Spink married Ann Elgar (1754-1798) by Faculty Office Marriage Licence dated 22 April 1789 on 28 April 1789 at St John the Baptist, New Windsor, Berkshire.
Ann was born on 7 September 1754 at Finsbury, Islington, and baptised on 4 October 1754 at St Luke, Old Street, Finsbury. She was the daughter of Thomas Elgar (d. 1792) of Canterbury, Kent, and his wife Rebeccah.
In 1790, Marshall was a member of the Innholders' Livery Company. George Lacoste, son of Peter Lacoste (deceased), of Hatton Garden, Holborn, jeweller, was apprenticed to him on 2 March 1790. In 1796, Marshall was an Innholder of Gracechurch Street, London and in 1798-9 he was listed for Land Tax Redemption in the Bishopsgate Ward, parish of St Peter. On 26 June 1798, Ann Spink of Stepney Green, died and was buried in the Friends' (Quaker) Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, Islington, on 1 July 1798.
In 1801 Marshall married again, to Sarah Lambeth, a widow, of Islington, at St Peter, Cornhill. In 1802 he was listed as a Pawnbroker of 2 Gracechurch Street in Holden's London Directory.
On 16 August 1821 he was again a widower. He married thirdly Mary Garner, spinster, of Edmonton at St Peter, Cornhill. The 1825 Pigot's Directory lists Marshall Spink and Son, of 2 Gracechurch Street, London. In 1834 the house of Marshall and Daniel Elgar Spink was listed as 3 Gracechurch Street, St. Peter upon Cornhill. In 1845 they were listed as Goldsmiths in the Post Office Directory. In Marshall's will, dated 13 December 1830, he gives the additional address of Edmonton in the county of Middlesex. but the probate copy has been annotated "moved to Clapham Rise".
Marshall Spink of Cornhill, London, and Silversmith of Gracechurch Street, was buried on 16 May 1837 at All Saints, Edmonton, Enfield, London, leaving a PCC Will, proved on 25 August 1837, in which he left his estate to his wife Mary and son Daniel Elgar Spink.
1 DANIEL ELGAR SPINK (1792-1853), was born at Windsor, Berkshire. On 1st January 1807, Daniel Elgar Spink, son of Marshall Spink, of Gracechurch Street, London, Pawnbroker, Citizen and Innholder of London, was apprenticed to his father. This admitted him to the Freedom of the City of London on completion of the Indenture, and, like his father, to privileges which gave them an advantage as Members of a London Guild. Daniel married Sarah Martin, née Jordan (1790-1874), of Edmonton, Middlesex, on 28 August 1823 at St Peter, Cornhill. He was described as a silversmith. The couple were of 2, Gracechurch Street, London, in 1827.
The will of Daniel Elgar Spink was proved 26 March 1853. He left considerable property to his son Marshall Spink and provided for his wife and a daughter in great detail.
The will of of Sarah Martin Spink, late of Oak Dell, Bickley, Kent, where she died on 22 October 1874, was proved by her sons, the Rev. Marshall Spink of St Nicholas, Saltash Parsonage, Saltash, Cornwall, and John Spink of 2 Gracechurch Street, London, Jeweller.
1.1 MARSHALL SPINK (1825-1878) was born in 1825 and christened on 5 March 1826 at St Peter's, Cornhill.
He matriculated at St Mary Hall, now part of Oriel College, Oxford, on 14 December 1848, aged 23, and gained a B.A. in 1849 (Alumni Oxoniensis, Vol. IV),
He married Mary Porret Hawkins (1828-1899) at St Germans, Cornwall, in the third quarter of 1852.
He was made deacon by the Bishop of Durham in 1851 and priest by the Bishop of Exeter (or Oxford) in 1853. He served as curate of Dawlish, Devon, from 1851-3, of St. Ives from 1853-55, and of Towednack, Cornwall,from 1855-58. He is in the 1859 West of England Trewman's Directory and Pocket Journal List of Unbeneficed Clergy in Cornwall, page 195, at St. Nicholas, Saltash, where he was curate from 1858 to 1870. The Rev. Marshall Spink died at Saltash, (St. Germans), on 28 June 1878 aged 52.
(NB In 1926, there was a Rev. Marshall S.H. Spink of St. Aldhelm's Vicarage, Silver Street, Upper Edmonton, London, N.18. He would be the Marshall Seth Harold Spink (1860-1928), son of Daniel Spink, born in Upper Clapton, London, curate of Heeley church, Eccleshall, Yorkshire in 1911.
1.2 JOHN SPINK (1827-1904), a silversmith, was born on 20 March 1827 and baptised on 29 April 1827 at St Peter upon Cornhill, London. He was apprenticed to Samuel Starkey of 18 King Street, Clerkenwell, London, a Jeweller, on 5 April 1843.
He married Elizabeth Farley Saunders (1826-1911) on 28 June 1854 in the City of London.
Elizabeth Farley Saunders, born 12 July 1826, who died 4 February 1911 at Eastbourne, aged 84 years, was the daughter of James Ebenezer Saunders (1802-1857) and Harriet Farley (1806-1876), who married on 7 April 1825 at Holy Trinity, Clapham, London.
John Spink and family were at 6 Woodland Terrace, St Alphage, Greenwich in 1861, at the Cedars, Soutfield, Bromley, Kent in 1871 and at Vine Lodge, Sevenoaks, Kent in the 1881 Census. At the beginning of February 1884, he retired from the partnership with his three sons, who carred on trading as Spink and Son. John was of 53 Grand Parade, Eastbourne, in the 1901 Census, and of 'Roseneath', Eastbourne, when he died on 11 February 1904, leaving an estate of £84,904 to his sons: John Marshall Spink, a Numismatist of the firm of Spink and Sons, Gracechurch Street, London, Samuel Martin Spink, and Charles Frederick Spink, diamond merchants. He and Elizabeth are buried in Ocklynge Cemetery in Eastbourne.
1.2.1 JOHN MARSHALL SPINK (1855-1943), born in London on 4 May 1855. He married Emma Plumbridge (1856-1905) at Sevenoaks in the second quarter of 1882. In the 1901 census he was at Vine Lodge and described himself as a diamond merchant. Emma was listed as "Eliza", living with her infant son, Gorden, at 6 Albion Place, Ramsgate, Kent.
Emma died on 21 December 1905. John remarried, to Cornelia Eleanor Andrews (1859-1942), born on 23 August 1859, in 1907 at St George's, Hanover Square. In 1911 he and his family were at 'Taormina', Carew Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, a 14-roomed house.
In 1933 he was declared bankrupt, but the order was rescinded in 1935 on it being proved that all his debts had been paid.
By 1939 he had retired, and was at 16 Southfields Road, Eastbourne. Cornelia died on 22 November 1942 nad was buried in Hove Cemetery (South). John died on 26 February 1943 and is buried in Ocklynge Cenetery, Eastbourne.
By his first wife he had a daughter and two sons:
1.2.1.1 CECIL OLIVER SPINK (1892-1959), born in the Reigate Surrey, district on 26 March of 1892. At the time of the 1901 census he was at Aberdeen House School in Ramsgate. He remained single. In 1939 he was the lay reader at Waddington Hospital, living next to the vicarage at Waddington, Bowland, Yorkshire. He died on 3 September 1959 in the Ewecross registration district.
1.2.1.2 SYBIL JESSIE SPINK (1897-1994), born in Guildford, Surrey, on 6 December 1897 and aged 13 in 1911. She married John Arthur Clarke, a Major in the Royal Engineers, at Maymo, Bengal, India, on 16 November 1925. John was born in 5 December 1897 at Burnley, Lamcashire, and killed in action on 9 February 1945 in Belgium. In 1939 Sybil was living at 6 Spences Court, Spencer Road, Eastbourne, Sussex. She died on 29 January 1994 at Nova House, 13 Belgrave Road, Seaford, Sussex.
1.2.1.3 GORDON DOUGLAS SPINK (1899-1978), born in Southborough, Kent on 13 (or 23, according to his death certificate) July 1899, and aged 11 in 1911. From 1917 he served in the armed forces, becoming a fitter in the Royal Flying Corps. He was recorded as 5'7½" tall with a 33" chest.
He became an aircraft jig and tool maker. He married Nellie Swift (born 16 October 1903) in the Battle registration district in the third quarter of 1927. They were at 4 Longmore Avenue, Southampton in 1939, and 1 Beech Court, Beech Avenue, Southampton in 1978. He died at Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 20 November 1978, and is buried at St Mary Extra (aka Butts Road) Cemetery, Southampton. His estate was valued at £15,625. A son:
1.2.1.3.1 PETER JOHN SPINK (b.1931) was born in the Eastbourne registration district in the first quarter of 1931.
1.2.2 SAMUEL MARTIN SPINK (1856-1947). Samuel married Elsie Höfer of Zurich, (1862-1899), at Berne on 6 September 1883. She was the daughter of Johann Jakob Hofer (1822-1872) and Maria Verena Egli (1825-1899). She was of Zurich Lodge, Sevenoaks, Kent, when she died on 10 September 1899.
They had three daughters and two sons, Harold Hans Marshall Spink (1887-1958) and John James Hofer Spink (1892-1949). The family also lived at Eastbourne and Reigate. Samuel M. Spink had two more wives and families. He died at Worthing on 9 February 1947.
1.2.3 CHARLES FREDERICK SPINK (1858-1945) was born in London on 1 April 1858. He was educated at the school of Charles Pridham at 34 Richmond Terrace, Clifton, Bristol.
He married Jennie Corin (1866-1937) at Lewisham in the second quarter of 1889. Jennie was some eight years younger than Charles. This marriage was only a little time before Charles' sister Annie married Jennie's brother Edwin. Charles described himself as a numismatist.
The couple were living at 'Ivy Bank', 1 Summer Hill Villas, Chislehurst, in 1891, and later moved to 'Furzefield', Chislehurst, Kent (where they were in 1911 and 1916). He was an Antiquarian and Fine Art Dealer in 1911.They also lived at 'Chy Carne', St Ives, Cornwall (from 1919 to 1929), at Little Dean, Chandler's Ford, Hants., in 1930, and at 'Beechenhurst', Aldwink, Bognor Regis, Sussex, in January 1936. Jennie Spink died at St Leonard's, Sussex, on 6th November 1937. Charles was retired in 1939 when he remarried, Sybil Naomi Pigott Close, born in the last quarter of 1872 at Horsham, Sussex. They were married at Honiton, Devon, in the last quarter of 1939; they lived at 'Fermain', Furzefield Road, Reigate, Surrey, and she died in the S.E. Surrey Registration District on 3 August 1953, aged 80. Charles Frederick Spink died at 55 Downview Road, Worthing, Sussex, on 19 June 1945, leaving his estate to his two daughters.
1.2.3.1 IRENE ELIZABETH CORIN SPINK (1891-1934), born on 9 May 1891 at Chislehurst, Kent. She married a cousin, Hans Friederich Hofer (1887-1976), from Zurich. The Hofer family had originated in Langnau in Emmental, Canton Berne. Hans, known to the English side of the family as Fred, was the eldest son of Johannes (Hans) Hofer, who ran the family business of Hofer and Co., lithographers, in Zurich, and his wife Elizabeth Sarah, née Spink, (1860-1932), was Irene's aunt, "Lizzie". (The Spink family visited Switzerland while travelling to Menton, and made contact with Plymouth Brethren there.) Hans Friedrich (Fred) Hofer was born at the Spinks', his maternal grandparents' home, Vine Lodge, Sevenoaks, Kent, 20th Nov. 1887; Switzerland was at that time not considered adequate for a first confinement! The delivery was in any case a difficult one, by forceps, and it was thought that there might have been a connection between this and the nervous condition which he subsequently suffered from from time to time during his life. He became a printer, like his father. During the Great War he came over to England in order to marry. He had dual nationality, but having been commissioned into a Swiss Army Mountain Unit in 1908, he avoided having to serve in the British Army. Fred and Irene were married at the East London Baptist Tabernacle, Mile End, on 18 April 1918.
1.2.3.2 EVA GRACE SPINK (1893-1977), born on 22 March 1893 in Kent. Eva married Rev. Stephen Edward Pulford (1895-1973) in London on 27 May 1920; he was born in Islington, London, in the first quarter of 1895.
1.2.3.3 KATHLEEN ALICE SPINK (1894-1976), born on 7 September 1894 at Bromley, Kent. She married her cousin Johann Jakob (or John Jacob) Hofer (1892-1963) on 18 January 1919 at Bromley, Kent.
Johann had been born on 28 June 1892, the brother of Hans Friederich Hofer (1887-1976) of Zurich, who was the husband of Irene Elizabeth Corin Spink (1891-1934). Hans and Johann were the sons of Johannes Hofer and Elizabeth Sarah Spink (1860-1932) - Elizabeth was the sister of Annie Saunders Spink (1863-1938) who married Edwin Philip Corin (1863-1940).
1.2.4 ELIZABETH SARAH SPINK (1860-??), known as "Aunt Lizzie", was five months old at the time of the 1861 census. She married Johannes Hofer in the third quarter of 1886 at Sevenoaks, Kent.
They were the parents of Hans Friedrich Hofer (1887-1976) born in 1887 at Vine Lodge, Sevenoaks, who married Irene Elizabeth Corin Spink (1891-1934); and of Johann Jakob Hofer (1892-1963), born on 28 June 1892 in Zurich, Switzerland, who married Kathleen Alice Spink (above). Elizabeth Sarah Hofer died c. March 1932 at Küsnacht, Zurich.
1.2.5 ANNIE SAUNDERS SPINK (1863-1938) was born in the first quarter of 1863 at Blackheath, Kent.
She married Edwin Philip Corin at Sevenoaks, Kent, in the third quarter of 1889.
1.2.6 MIA ALICE SPINK (1865-19??), born in Brighton (Steyning) on 24 October 1865. She was at The Cedars, Southlands, Bromley in 1871 and Vine Lodge, Sevenoaks, Kent in 1881. In 1901 she was living with her married brother at Vine Lodge. Sevenoaks, Kent. In 1937, aged 71, she returned to England from Durban, South Africa, on the Athlone Castle. In 1939 she was at Andrews Street, Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire. She died, unmarried, at Tunbridge Wells on 31 July 1943, (Probate 7 January 1944), leaving an estate of £5,973.
1.3 SARAH SPINK (1829-1915) was baptised on 8 March 1829 at St. Peter's, Cornhill. She married James Jabez Payn (1823-1907), a Silk (?Furniture) Manufacturer, born at Saffron Walden, Essex. They were married at Lewisham, Kent, on 6 November 1862.
In 1871, her 80 year old mother, Sarah Martin Spink, was living with the Payn family at Oak Dell, Bickley, near Bromley, Kent. Sarah Payn died there on 26 February 1915, leaving her son, David Elgar Payn, a Captain in H.M. Army, and daughter, Sarah Beatrice Payn, spinster, her estate of £3,926 in her will, proved on 7 April 1915. (Evan Best has a Wedgwood cup and saucer inherited from the Payn family.)
James and Sarah Payn had at least four sons and a daughter:
1.3.1 JAMES ALFRED PAYN (1864-1924) was their eldest son. He followed his father as a silk manufacturer.
He married Jean Russell (1862-1923) of Ardrossan, Ayrshire on 3 September 1895 at Christ Church, Holborn, London. They emigrated to Sydney around 1922. They had two sons, James and Richard, and a daughter, Sarah Dorothy Jean Payn (1897-1974), known as Dorothy, born at Sevenoaks, Kent, who later became a school headmistress of Newcastle, N.S.W., and who later lived and died at Milson’s Point, North Sydney, and was a great friend of the Evan Best's mother, née Pauline Hope Corin, who also lived in Sydney.
1.3.2 DAVID ELGAR PAYN (1865-1943) became a Captain in H.M. Army.
1.3.3 SARAH BEATRICE PAYN (1869-1959) was still a spinster when he mother died in 1915.