A Victorian gothic revival silver Christening Beaker by Hardman and Company.

John Hardman Powell. 1827-1895.
A Victorian Beaker in the Gothic Revival style, Birmingham 1872, by John Hardman and Company.
John Hardman Powell, the nephew of John Hardman and the son-in-law of Pugin, worked with Pugin at the Grange in Ramsgate as a young man and subsequently became the chief designer at Hardman and Company, developing the gothic revival style favoured by Pugin. He was responsible for the design of a number of secular pieces, including a coffee pot for Colonel Lygon Cocks of Treverbyn Vean, and a variety of beakers – some of which were clearly intended as Christening gifts for relations. One of the shields on this beaker has the initials of John Bernard Hardman, [1843-1903], who ran the Hardman and Company business from 1863. The other shield, a lozenge, has the initials ‘GH’. Gertrude Mary Hardman, the daughter of John Bernard, was born in 1871. She became a Sister of Mercy at Lozells St Silas.