Details

Name

William Lukin

Brief Biography

1692-1757 (active), british, silversmith

Occupation

Silversmith

Description

William Lukin I, a London silversmith, also known as a goldsmith, was apprenticed to St John Hoyte on 21 June 1692; his apprenticeship papers detail his father was Samuel Lukin, of Bodicot, Oxford. Lukin’s apprenticeship was taken over by John Shephard on 1 June 1698. Under both masters, Merry would have learnt the skills and techniques required to have an occupation in the silver trade. In 1699, Lukin was made a ‘freeman’ of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, ending his apprenticeship, and given freedom to trade within the City of London. The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, one of the official Livery companies of the city, was established in 1327 as a guild to regulate the silver trade. He entered his first mark at their headquarters and guild hall, The Goldsmiths Hall, in 1699, registering as a ‘largeworker’, a silversmith who created larger domestic objects such as dishes, plates, and candlesticks. His workshop at this time is recorded as being at (the sign of the) Golden Cup, Gutter Lane. Lukin entered additional marks at The Goldsmiths Hall in 1702 and 1725.

Ward was elected to the Goldsmiths Company Livery in October 1708. By 1715, he was gaining notable commissions, heavily influenced by French Huguenot designs. After The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France 1685, French Protestant craftsmen, known as Huguenots, settled in London seeking religious freedom and security. Huguenots brought with them knowledge and skills in the modelling, casting and engraving of silverware in the ‘International’ or ‘French’ style. By the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, high demand for this fashionable French silverware in England meant English silversmiths often hired Huguenot metalworkers in their workshop. It is possible Lukin hired Huguenot workers from 1715 onwards, striking their wares with his own mark. However, in February 1716, Lukin signed a petition campaigning the governing Goldsmiths’ Hall to only approve (assay) the silver made by Huguenots if they had worked for seven years as an apprentice. Many English silversmiths issued numerous petitions to the Goldsmith Hall from 1697-1716 to curtail the freedoms of Huguenot silversmiths in the city.

Lukin married Ann Glynn on 2 October 1699 at St. James Church in Clerkenwell, London England. Their daughter, Elizabeth, was born on 27 November 1700, and baptised at St. Vedast, Foster Lane, on 2 December 1700. William and Elizabeth Lukin also had a son, Robert, recorded as buried at St. John Zachary’s Parish, on 8 June 1703. William Lukin was buried on 12 December 1757, in Kensington Parish. Lukin’s will was approved for probate on 5 April 1758, and details he had an additional daughter with Ann, named Mary.