Hundreds of Staffordshire pottery figures, inspired by Queen Victoria and gathered over 50 years by one of England’s most highly regarded public school headmasters, are coming to auction.
The late Dennis Silk CBE, warden of boys-only Radley College in Oxfordshire from 1968-1991, English first-class cricketer and close friend of war poet Siegfreid Sassoon, began amassing the porcelain figures in the late 1960s. And it was all sparked by his first find – a Queen Victoria figurine.
Dennis, who died at the age of 87 in 2019, was hugely admired. He gained national recognition in 1980 when he appeared in BBC documentary series Public School and Eric Anderson, former head of Eton, regarded Silk as the best headmaster of his generation.
Now his collection of 261 ornamental Staffordshire figures, many from the Victorian era, will be offered by Hansons Auctioneers at Bishton Hall, Staffs, on November 12. Such is the rarity of some of the items, it is anticipated the collection could sell for in excess of £20,000.
The figures, several dating back to the mid-1800s, include Admiral Lord Nelson, first English balloonist James Sadler and Welsh preacher Christmas Evans. However, notorious characters of the period were also captured for posterity. These include James B Rush, a tenant farmer hanged at Norwich Castle in 1849 after shooting dead his landlord.
Another rare offering is lot 155, Marie Manning, circa 1849, estimate £200-300. Manning (1821-1849) was a Swiss domestic servant who was hanged on the roof of London’s Horsemonger Lane Gaol on in 1849. She and her husband were convicted of the murder of her lover, Patrick O’Connor, in a case known as the ‘Bermondsey Horror’.
Silk was born in Eureka, California. His father was a medical missionary on a Native American reservation in the Sierra Nevada desert. Silk’s mother died when he was five, and the family returned to Britain.
Silk was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA in history and represented Cambridge University at cricket. A useful opener or middle-order batsman, he scored centuries in matches against Oxford University in 1953 and 1954, and captained Cambridge University in 1955. He went on to play first-class cricket for Somerset as an amateur but gave priority to his teaching career. His highest first-class score was 126 for Cambridge University against the MCC in 1953.
Silk toured East Africa with the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1957-58 and captained the MCC on tours to South America in 1958-1959 and to the US and Canada in 1959 and 1967. He also captained a strong MCC team on a tour of New Zealand in 1960-61, which included 10 first-class matches. He retired from first-class cricket at the age of 29.
Silk chaired the Test and County Cricket Board from 1994 to 1996 and served as President of the MCC. He was an Honorary Life Vice-President of the MCC from 2000 onwards. He was made a CBE in the 1995 New Year’s Honours List for services to cricket and education.
When Silk retired from Radley, he preferred not to accept retirement gifts but instead established the Dennis Silk Fund to support the education of talented boys whose parents struggled with pay school fees.
How it all began | Tribute by Diana Silk, wife of Dennis Silk (1931-2019)
It was in the summer of 1968 that Dennis, newly appointed warden (headmaster) of Radley College went with a friend to look for a holiday cottage in Dorset. He returned without a cottage but with a large Staffordshire figure of Queen Victoria. That was the start of a lifelong fascination with Staffordshire portrait figures which gave him enormous pleasure over the next 50 years.
Dennis was born in Eureka, California, USA, on October 8, 1931. His father was a missionary/doctor in Orleans, a small gold mining town above the Clamouth river. When he was four his mother died nursing the Indians through TB, so his father took the family back to live in Hampstead, London, with their grandmother.
At the onset of the Second World War in 1939, Dennis went to prep school, and then Christ’s Hospital where he became Senior Grecian (Head Boy). There he found his love of all sport and played for the English Schools XI.
He gained an Exhibition to Sidney Sussex to read History and Blues in cricket, rugby and rugby fives. It was at Cambridge while playing cricket at Fenners that he met poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Siegfried had come up to receive an award from his old college and his friend, Edmund Blunden, an old boy of Christ’s Hospital, told him to look up Dennis. They became good friends and Dennis spent many hours with him at his country home in Heytesbury, Wiltshire, sitting in his library after dinner reliving the First World War until the early hours of the morning. After Siegfried died Dennis gave lectures on his poetry and was president of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship.
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When Dennis came down from Cambridge he taught History at Marlborough College coaching rugby, cricket and rugby fives. He played 1st class cricket for Somerset in the holidays. He toured with the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) to East Africa and South America and captained an MCC side to Canada and New Zealand.
Some 11 years into his career as warden of Radley College, the BBC made a 10-episode series about Radley. ‘Public School’, one of the first documentaries of its kind, shone a light on life at the boys’ boarding school. On retirement Dennis became president of the MCC, chairman of the Test and County Cricket Board, and was made CBE in 1955. Eric Anderson, the former head of Eton, wrote, ‘Those of us who were headmasters during his era generally acknowledged that he was the best of us all’.
No saleroom or antique shop escaped his eagle eye and there was one occasion when the headmaster of Newport Grammar School, Michael Parry, came to Oxford to address the Headmasters’ Conference and apologised for being a little late as he had seen a Staffordshire figure in a shop and had to stop and go in.
At the end of his talk Dennis rushed to speak to him. Michael told us afterwards he had thought he would ask a difficult question about his talk, and was enormously relieved when Dennis said, “Could you tell me what the figure was and where was the shop?” Needless to say, we became good friends and when Michael died, we were able to buy several of his figures, including the handsome display cabinet his wife had made at her woodworking class.
Over the years the figures have given us all much to think and talk about and we hope they will continue to enrich the lives of their new guardians.
Honour To Catalogue Collection
Gillian Finney, Hansons’ Connoisseur Ceramics Consultant, said: “I was delighted when Alan Sturrock, president of The Staffordshire Figure Association, asked if I would liaise with Charles Hanson to oversee this special collection of Staffordshire figures on behalf of the family of the late Dennis Silk. It has been an honour and privilege to work on such a prestigious collection.”
Alan Sturrock, president of the Staffordshire Figure Association, said: “I was delighted the family sought the advice of the Staffordshire Figure Association regarding the disposal of the Silk collection. It is a very comprehensive collection put together over some 40 or 50 years with the care and eye of a man who certainly loved and knew his subject.”
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