“It was a huge undertaking and we needed extra help,” Clive Stewart-Lockhart recalls. “So we recruited assistance from the Fine Art Valuation course at Southampton, then a wonderful source of keen young talent.”
In the front row, next to each other, can be seen youngsters John Axford and Jonathan Pratt, now chairman of Woolley & Wallis and managing director of Dreweatts, respectively.
The photo also includes Rachel Furr (then Coleman – middle row, to the left), who went on to work at Bonhams and Elaine Binning (far right, facing away) who became a director of Dreweatts and head of furniture.
Binning is one of four future BBC antiques experts in shot, working with Stewart-Lockhart and Axford on Antiques Roadshow, and Flog It! and Bargain Hunt regular Pratt.
Moment in time
The sale was held in conjunction with valuation firm Gurr Johns, which 28 years later went on to acquire Dreweatts and Bloomsbury auction houses in 2017.
“It’s a moment in time,” Stewart-Lockhart muses, “where agents and auctioneers worked together, as well as capturing two of the senior UK auctioneering figures when they were mere students, with their careers stretching out ahead of them.”
