The Arts & Crafts lamp featured in ATG No 2538.
Many examples of this model have appeared over the years, but none have been marked with the BGH stamp, which is unusual, and having researched the guild for over 20 years I have never seen this model illustrated in any of the guild’s many lighting catalogues.
The mystery of who made this lamp was finally solved when looking through a collection of lighting catalogues from the Birmingham firm of Jesson, Birkett & Co. These all feature the ‘horn’ lamp as model No E490.
Birkett background
How the lamp appeared in a catalogue for the Birmingham firm of Jesson, Birkett & Co.
Thomas Birkett was a metalworker at the Birmingham Guild in the late 1890s before he left to join the Faulkner Bronze Company, which was later reconstituted as Jesson, Birkett & Co in 1904. They made a wide range of light fittings in a number of then fashionable styles.
It remains a very handsome lamp but it was not designed by Arthur Dixon, nor was it made by The Birmingham Guild.
Tony Peart
Senior lecturer in graphic design and illustration
The University of Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle
