“If you were to ask our bank, we’re still Boodle & Dunthorne,” says James Amos, director and appointed historian of the English fine jewellery house. Boodles dropped the Dunthorne part of their name back in 2005 to become Boodles. “We’d always called ourselves ‘Boodles’ in-house; family and friends always called us Boodles, so it was quite an easy transition,” he considers.
Boodles, whose origins date back to 1798, began life as Wainwright’s, which before that had been Kirk’s. The Wainwrights became involved in the latter part of the 19th century when a man called Henry Wainwright bought the business and changed the name – to Wainwright & Sons.
The sons, however, in around 1900, decided that they wanted to try out some ideas of their own and go it alone. So they did. And bought another business in Liverpool, which was called Boodle & Dunthorne. It had been set up by one Mr Boodle and another Mr Dunthorne. The former died and the latter got into money trouble. The sons bought it and ended up setting up shop a couple of streets away from their father.
“After a few years, I think the feeling was that it was silly [to do this],” says Amos, “and they ended up having a centralised administration.” Eventually the two businesses were merged together. “And they decided to call it Boodle & Dunthorne – the thinking being it sounded a little more sophisticated and smarter (Amos shares how a note in the archive from his grandfather, Henry Wainwright, thinks that Wainwright’s in a Liverpudlian accent wasn’t quite right).
So in steps Henry Wainwright. He had two sons, Harold and Herbert. Harold went away to fight in World War One and sadly was killed, leaving a father-and-son operation, which did well to establish itself as “the sort of pre-eminent jewellery company in the North West of England,” says Amos. In 1939, King George VI came on a visit to Liverpool and was presented with a silver-gilt switch by the house.
Over the years, other Royal highlights have included, in 1947, the designing of a cake stand for one of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding cakes; and the presentation of the Boodles Trophy to HRH the Prince of Wales whose polo team beat the Boodles team by 5 – 4 1/2 at Cirencester Polo Club in 1989.
Herbert’s son was Anthony Wainwright, who is Amos’ grandfather. He fought in World War Two and in autumn 1945 discovered both his father and grandfather had died within two weeks of each other. He himself had suffered malaria while fighting. “So you can imagine your mindset,” says Amos about his return. A bomb had landed on the Lord Street site. “And as you can imagine, people were not particularly focused on buying diamonds and pearls, precious gemstones, watches, silver, all that sort of stuff. But he was a determined businessman and rose to the challenge.”
In 1965, a second store opened in Chester, then a third in Manchester in 1980. But it was Anthony Wainwright’s dream to open a shop in London, something he would leave sons Michael and Nicholas Wainwright to go on to do. And so enters the second history of the jewellery house, or the “renaissance”, which happened in the 1990s when the company took on a designer for the very first time, Rebecca Hawkins, who joined in 1990. “She’s still with us 31 years later,” says Amos. And has since been responsible for creating landmark collections, such as ‘Hug’, her debut, ‘Raindance’ and ‘Wonderland’.
Up until her arrival, points out Amos, had you wandered past a Boodle & Dunthorne window, you’d have seen “lots of lovely, lovely jewellery, lots of silver candlesticks, little porcelain pots, 15 different watch brands”, but none that had been designed in-house by them. It was quite the game-changer in many ways.
Designed 21 years ago, the ‘Raindance’ ring is an especially important piece. And can be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s permanent collection. “You wander around through the ages and you get to 2010 and you see our little ring there along with a few other items as an example of an iconic British design.” It had been inspired by raindrops gliding down a marble sculpture at Chelsea Flower Show.
There is also the ‘Wonderland’ collection which showcases the house’s commitment to exceptionalism. Themes include fables, treasures and fairy tales, flora and fauna.
Most recently the house launched ‘All Around The World in 16 Days’, an homage to the journey their late grandfather took in 1962, travelling whistlestop-style across the world to source diamonds, pearls and precious gemstones. He visited some 10 cities in just over two weeks, remarkable back then as well as modern-day standards. “I asked my mother about it the other day to see if she remembered and she said ‘Yes’. And said that he missed granny so much that he sent her a bunch of flowers every day of the 16,” shares Amos. It’s this journey, and an accompanying photo album, that Rebcca Hawkins has translated for the next chapter of Boodles.
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