The Old Brooch

Some years ago my mother inherited the contents of a farmhouse in England.  She found the antique brooch in the photo below in the old Devonshire house and, much to my delight, she gave it to me.

The brooch when we first saw it

Abigail, my geocaching character whom I wrote about in a previous blog, informed me that she'd love to have the brooch. I don't know if other writers have this problem, but sometimes my characters can be very demanding! However, after some thought, I agreed to give it to her. I'd recently read a blog post by C.S. Lakin about using symbols and motifs in a book, and the brooch would be the perfect symbol for Abigail's quest to find God.

I followed a set of instructions I found on Google and cleaned the brooch. I presented it to Abigail, who grinned her thanks as she pinned it to the backpack she used for geocaching. I know, don't ask, that's Abigail for you.  Did I really expect her to wear it on her clothes?

Clean brooch

We wanted to know more about the brooch, so we brainstormed a list of questions. Here are some of them:

How old is the brooch?

Who made it?

Where was it made?

Who was the original owner of the brooch?

Who gave it to her? Her beau? Her father? Her friend? Her employer?

Why did that person give it to her? A Valentine's present (Abigail vetoed that one as too obvious) To reward an achievement? A farewell present by a soldier going off to fight in a war and if so, which war? And did he return from the war? And if he did, was she waiting for him or did she go off with another?

Or did she pick it up in a country lane, and if so, who lost it? How did that person lose it?

Or maybe she stole it? Then why did she steal it?

Was she covering for a servant who stole it?

Did a magpie drop it down the chimney?

Did she find it in a highwayman's secret hollow tree?

Did she catch a fish and . . .

"STOP!" said Abigail. "This is getting way out of hand. Let's find out the facts before we speculate any more. Why don't you write a blog post about the brooch? Put some photos online too. Maybe someone knowledgeable about antique brooches will see it and tell you more about it."

"Good idea, Abigail."

So here's the blog post with photos as suggested by my bossy character. If anyone knows anything about it, we'd really appreciate it if you would tell us about the brooch in the comment section below. Many thanks.

By the way, the brooch is about 5 cms (2.75 ins) across and appears to be silver plated or made of silver. There are 4 sets of markings on the back, the first RJW, the second could be a lion with a raised paw, the third two parallel vertical marks and the fourth looks like an anchor lying on its side. They are very difficult to see properly even with a magnifying glass.