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William & Nicholas Holmes & Dumee

William Holmes was free of the Loriners' Company (records destroyed 1940, but so described in later apprenticeships to him in Goldsmiths' records). He is recorded as working by about 1762, since pieces bearing a mark very similar to his later entered mark exist from this date until 1771. Heal records David Whyte, plateworker, Clerkenwell Green, 1766; and Whyte and Holmes, working silversmiths, Clerkenwell Green in 1770. His hallmark is also recorded 1764 to 1767. Heal records Holmes alone as a working silversmith, at number 12 Clerkenwell Green, from 1768 - 90, and he appears as plateworker, at the same address, in the Parliament Report list in 1773. His first documented mark as plateworker, in partnership with Nicholas Dumee was entered on the 8th September 1773. Address: 12 Clerkenwell Green. (His name is curiously missing from the Parliament Report list dated 8th March 1773, whereas David Whyte is listed at 19 Little Britain.) Second mark entered alone on the 2nd January 1776 at the same address. His third mark is recorded on the 21st March 1792. William Holmes took J.S. Denwall as an apprentice in1790, and his own son John Gwyn Holmes in1780.