The Golden Link

Julia Usher, master jeweller, at her bench in her woodland workshop in Staffordshire

While I was training at the Birmingham School of Jewellery, something very profound happened. I found out that I was not the first jeweller in my family. My great great grandfather, Samuel Usher, was a manufacturing jeweller in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. The trade had skipped two generations, and I had picked it back up without knowing.

Years later, I found him in the Post Office Directory of Birmingham for 1872, listed under Ring Makers.

Harris & Usher (gold signet & mourning), 33 Upper Hockley street
Post Office Directory of Birmingham, 1872. Ring Makers.

I had to read those words twice. Samuel was making mourning rings, so that families could carry the people they had lost with them. More than a century later, at my own bench, that is exactly what I do.

I am telling the whole story in a book I am writing, The Golden Link. It is the story of how two lives, more than a century apart, turned out to be joined by the same craft and the same corner of Birmingham. It will take you inside the working life of a Victorian jeweller in the Jewellery Quarter, and look at how the techniques he used compare with the ones I use at my bench today. I hope you find it as fascinating to read as I have found it to research.

The facts

  • Julia Usher is a master jeweller and the jeweller behind Ashes Memorial Jewellery, working from a woodland workshop in rural Staffordshire.
  • She trained at the Birmingham School of Jewellery, starting in 2001 and qualifying in 2004.
  • Her great great grandfather, Samuel Usher, was a Victorian manufacturing jeweller in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.
  • In the Post Office Directory of Birmingham for 1872, his firm, Harris & Usher, is listed under Ring Makers for gold signet and mourning rings, at 33 Upper Hockley Street.
  • Mourning rings were the Victorian form of memorial jewellery. Julia Usher makes memorial jewellery from ashes, hair and fingerprints.
  • Julia Usher is writing a book about their shared story, called The Golden Link.

You can read more about how I work on my page Why Choose Ashes Memorial Jewellery, or meet the family.