Gilded Silver Nut Rocker
Silversmith
Geoffrey Bellamy
(Birmingham, England, 1922 - 1997)
Date1956
Object NameRocker
Mediumsilver and silver gilt
ClassificationsApplied Art
DimensionsOverall: height 4.5cm × width 24.1cm × depth 9.5cm
AcquisitionPurchased in 2002 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions.
Copyright© Michael Bellamy (2010)
LocationOn Display - Gallery 06
Object numberABDAG011167
About MeGeoffrey Guy Bellamy: born 1922 died 1997. Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. He often stamped his pieces with a facsimile signature.In 1940 when he was 18 he joined the RAF and served until the end of the war flying Lancasters in 405 squadron before moving on to the Pathfinder force where he won the DFC and bar. He lost 2 crews, one while on sick-leave recovering from a flak wound, the other while he was seconded elsewhere, and flew 112 missions.
After the war he studied at the Birmingham College of Art from 1946-1950 and then at the Royal College of Art from 1950-1953 graduating the same year as younger colleagues Gerald Benney and David Mellor. He and Mellor were the first two students to win first class honours in the silver degree course and all of the younger students admired him. Eric Clements was there at the same time and Robert Welch graduated in 1955, all of them being taught by Robert Goodden.
Bellamy started his own one-man workshop in London in a small basement beneath a dry-cleaner's in Cadogan Street making small items, some for the retailer George Tarratt in Leicester. With Ivan Tarratt they formed Bellamy & Tarratt, a production silver company which lasted until 1959. He then did some designs for A E Jones. Bellamy won a Design Centre Award in 1961 for his "Monte Carlo" cutlery, made by George Wolstenholm in Sheffield. Before 1964 he joined the Council of Industrial Design as Industrial Liason Officer for silver and the allied industries, his job being to encourage good designs.
Bellamy enjoyed teaching and became Head of the Sheffield College of Art and then Principal at Canterbury and Maidstone.
More About Me
Why would you need to rock a nut? How else would you get that last pesky one with a flick of your hand? Talk about convenience food!
Exhibitions
late 19th-early 20th Century
