Promoting art manufactures and commerce in one – the society's role in the development of British marble industry (2018)
Gordon Walkden (Author)
Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society
Volume: 37
Issue: 2
Pages: 363-379
Amongst its promotions at the start of the nineteenth century, the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce included calls for British marbles. The calls were repeated annually for two decades but what initiated them was more than just an altruistic desire to promote indigenous sources of statuary and decorative stone. Supplies of both, especially statuary marble, greatly relied upon imports from France and Italy. At the time of the first calls these were jeopardised by the revolutionary and Napoleonic upheavals and other sources of stone became necessary, but the Society never cited political pressures as a driver behind their calls for British marbles. The term ‘marble’ was to be interpreted widely, and the response brought limestones, serpentines, granites and true marbles from across the British nations including much from southern Ireland. Two Gold Medals were awarded, one for a spectacular revelation of Devonshire marbles, and one for sheer guts and determination shown in bringing to market a fine marble from a remote part of Scotland. Within a decade of the Society's initiative there was a substantial renaissance in the use of decorative stone in Britain and much came from new indigenous sources. Although a good British white statuary marble never emerged, some spectacular coloured and textured British decorative stones became widely available and well used. Art, manufactures and commerce were the direct beneficiaries, but it is unlikely that the Society's initiative alone was responsible for this ‘marble renaissance’ of the mid-nineteenth Century.
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