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‘WORK UNTIL 2017’ HERITAGE BODIES TELL 68-YEAR OLD SILVERSMITH - August 2007
A silversmith who has spent 52 years working 10-hour days has been told that he must continue working – otherwise his beloved Birmingham workshops containing 130 years worth of British silver manufacturing history could be destroyed by developers.
Tony Evans, now 68, is the third generation of his family to run J W Evans & Sons in the city’s historic Jewellery Quarter. His workshops resemble a museum with a wealth of records, original working machinery and dies for stamping silverware, all dating back to the 1880s.
When Tony was first contemplating his retirement five years ago, English Heritage had already shown an interest in the manufactory having conducted an architectural survey of the Jewellery Quarter back in 1999.
It was suggested by the heritage body in 2003 that his time capsule could be turned in to a working museum celebrating the best of British manufacturing. The only catch was that Tony would need to continue running the business to ‘maintain an income stream’ whilst English Heritage found a way to preserve the building.
But now, with Tony’s scheduled retirement of 2004 long past, English Heritage which has worked alongside Birmingham Conservation Trust on this project, has suggested it could take another 10 years and up to £8 million of investment before the business can be wound down and turned into a tourist attraction.
“I’d retire tomorrow if I could but at the moment the only interested parties are developers. It would break my heart to see this historic collection bulldozed solely to make way for new apartments. The only way to avoid that is if I continue running the business until a suitable heritage body comes to the rescue,” said Tony.
“The people at English Heritage have said this is ‘probably the best preserved manufactory operating from former domestic premises.’ Since before the turn of the century, my family has kept an archive of photographs, wage books, personnel documents and order books, not to mention thousands of stamping dies all made on site in the factory.
“I’ve heard that The Heritage Lottery Fund has just given an £8 million grant to a nature area in Cambridge to preserve the habitat of water beetles and yet they’re prepared to let this example of our country’s proud manufacturing past rot away,” he added.
Philip Jackson from estate agents Maguire Jackson said he had been instructed to put the property on the market but said it was ‘disappointing’ that most of the contents would likely have to be thrown away.
“We’re actively seeking a commercial buyer who would be interested in retaining at least some of it as a working museum,” he said.
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