Garrard & Co. occupies a singular position in the history of jewellery: for more than 160 years it held the appointment of Crown Jeweller to the British monarchy, a commission that placed it at the centre of the nation's most consequential acts of state. From the coronation of Queen Victoria to the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Garrard was responsible for the creation, maintenance, alteration, and safekeeping of the Crown Jewels and the ceremonial regalia of the United Kingdom. No other jewellery house in British history has held this role for so sustained a period, and the firm's archive of royal commissions — encompassing the setting of the Cullinan diamonds, the maintenance of the Imperial State Crown, and the creation of personal jewellery for successive consorts — constitutes one of the most remarkable institutional records in the applied arts.

Origins and Early History

The firm's lineage is conventionally traced to George Wickes, who established a goldsmithing business in Panton Street, London, in 1735. Wickes was succeeded by various partners over the following decades, and the business passed through the hands of Robert Garrard the Elder before his sons — Robert, James, and Sebastian Garrard — consolidated the enterprise under the Garrard name in the early nineteenth century. Robert Garrard the Younger, who assumed leadership of the firm in 1818, proved to be the architect of its royal ambitions. He cultivated relationships with the court and in 1830 secured the appointment of goldsmith and jeweller to King William IV, a warrant that signalled the firm's arrival at the highest level of the London trade.

The decisive moment came in 1843, when Queen Victoria appointed Garrard as Crown Jeweller — a newly formalised title that distinguished the holder from the broader category of royal warrant holders and conferred specific responsibility for the Crown Jewels themselves. This appointment, renewed by successive monarchs, would define the firm's identity for the remainder of its existence as an independent house.

The Crown Jeweller's Responsibilities

The role of Crown Jeweller was not merely honorific. It carried substantive obligations: the physical custody and periodic inspection of the regalia held in the Tower of London, the cleaning and conservation of historic pieces, the resetting of stones when mounts became worn or when changing ceremonial requirements demanded it, and the creation of new pieces for coronations and state occasions. The Crown Jeweller was also called upon to advise the monarch and consort on personal jewellery commissions, a function that blurred the boundary between institutional stewardship and private patronage.

The regalia in Garrard's care included objects of extraordinary historical and gemmological significance: St Edward's Crown, used solely for the moment of coronation; the Imperial State Crown, worn at the State Opening of Parliament; the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross; and numerous orbs, swords, spurs, and rings accumulated over centuries. Among the gemstones set within these pieces are some of the most famous in the world — the Black Prince's Ruby (in fact a large red spinel), the Stuart Sapphire, the Cullinan II diamond, and the St Edward's Sapphire, a stone reputed to have been worn by Edward the Confessor in the eleventh century.

The Cullinan Diamonds

The most technically demanding single commission in Garrard's tenure as Crown Jeweller concerned the Cullinan diamond, found at the Premier Mine in the Transvaal in January 1905. The rough crystal weighed 3,106.75 carats — the largest gem-quality diamond ever recovered — and was presented to King Edward VII by the Transvaal government in 1907. The task of cleaving and polishing the stone was entrusted to the Asscher firm in Amsterdam, which divided the rough into nine principal stones and numerous smaller brilliants and polished fragments.

Garrard's role was to receive the finished principal stones and integrate them into the royal regalia and personal jewellery. The two largest — Cullinan I (530.20 carats, pear-shaped) and Cullinan II (317.40 carats, cushion-shaped) — were set by Garrard into the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross and the Imperial State Crown respectively. Cullinan I, also known as the Great Star of Africa, remains the largest colourless cut diamond in the world. The setting of these stones required Garrard's craftsmen to work within the constraints of historic mounts while accommodating stones of unprecedented size and optical complexity. The remaining principal Cullinan stones were set into personal jewellery for Queen Alexandra and later Queen Mary, several of which remain in the private collection of the British royal family.

Coronation Commissions

Each coronation of the twentieth century brought Garrard a programme of work that combined conservation of existing regalia with the creation of new pieces. For the coronation of King George VI in 1937, Garrard prepared the regalia and created the celebrated Kokoshnik-style tiara adapted for Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother). For the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, the firm undertook an extensive programme of cleaning and inspection of the Crown Jewels, and the Imperial State Crown was substantially remounted to fit the new sovereign. The 1953 crown incorporated the Cullinan II, the Black Prince's Ruby, the Stuart Sapphire, and the St Edward's Sapphire within a frame of platinum and gold set with 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, 5 rubies, and 269 pearls — a composition that Garrard's craftsmen had to maintain in a condition suitable for public display and active ceremonial use simultaneously.

Personal Jewellery for the Royal Family

Beyond the formal regalia, Garrard served as the principal jeweller to successive monarchs and their consorts for personal commissions. Queen Victoria, who had a strong personal interest in jewellery and whose tastes shaped the aesthetic of the mid-Victorian period, placed numerous orders with the firm. Queen Alexandra was a devoted client, and her preference for elaborate pearl and diamond parures influenced Garrard's output during the Edwardian era. Queen Mary, whose collecting instincts were legendary, worked closely with Garrard to acquire, reset, and document pieces that she regarded as properly belonging to the royal collection.

One commission that has passed into popular consciousness is the sapphire and diamond engagement ring created by Garrard in 1981 for Lady Diana Spencer upon her betrothal to Charles, Prince of Wales. The ring, set with an oval Ceylon sapphire of approximately 12 carats surrounded by fourteen round brilliant diamonds in a white gold mount, was selected from the firm's ready-to-wear catalogue rather than commissioned as a bespoke piece — a detail that attracted comment at the time but did not diminish the ring's subsequent fame. Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, the ring passed to Prince William, who presented it to Catherine Middleton upon their engagement in 2010. It is now worn by Catherine, Princess of Wales, and is among the most recognised pieces of jewellery in the world.

The Firm's Commercial Identity

Garrard's position as Crown Jeweller lent the firm an authority that extended well beyond royal circles. Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was regarded as one of the two or three pre-eminent jewellery houses in London, alongside Asprey and Collingwood, and its Regent Street premises attracted an international clientele drawn by the prestige of the royal connection. The firm produced silver and gold plate as well as jewellery, and its sporting trophies — including the America's Cup, which Garrard created in 1848 and has maintained ever since — gave it a visibility in social contexts beyond the strictly gemmological.

The twentieth century brought the structural pressures that affected all luxury houses dependent on aristocratic and royal patronage. Changes in inheritance taxation, the contraction of the landed gentry as a client base, and the democratisation of luxury consumption required adaptation. Garrard navigated these pressures with varying success, and the firm passed through several changes of ownership in the latter decades of the century, including a period of common ownership with Asprey that lasted from 1998 until the two houses were separated again in 2007.

End of the Crown Jeweller Appointment

In 2007, the Lord Chamberlain's Office announced that the appointment of Crown Jeweller would not be renewed when Garrard's warrant expired. The decision reflected a reorganisation of the management of the Crown Jewels, with responsibility passing to Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity that administers the Tower of London and other unoccupied royal palaces. The announcement ended a continuous association of 164 years between the firm and the British monarchy in this specific capacity, though Garrard retained other royal warrants.

The separation was significant not merely institutionally but symbolically: it marked the end of an era in which a single private jewellery house bore formal, named responsibility for the physical stewardship of the nation's most important gemstones and regalia. The decision was consistent with broader trends in the management of national heritage, in which specialist conservation bodies with museum-standard facilities and academic expertise have increasingly displaced the private trade in curatorial roles.

Legacy and Continuing Identity

Following the separation from Asprey and the loss of the Crown Jeweller appointment, Garrard underwent a significant repositioning. The firm relocated from its long-established Regent Street premises to Albemarle Street in Mayfair, and successive creative directors — including Jade Jagger, who held the role from 2004 to 2006, and later Stephen Webster — sought to modernise the brand's aesthetic while retaining its historical authority. The firm's archive, which documents commissions stretching back to the eighteenth century, remains a resource of considerable historical and gemmological value.

From a gemmological perspective, Garrard's legacy is inseparable from the history of the great diamonds and coloured stones that passed through its workshops. The firm's craftsmen worked with material that included not only the Cullinan stones but also historic rubies, sapphires, and emeralds of provenance reaching back to the medieval period. The technical challenges of setting, maintaining, and occasionally resetting such stones — within the constraints of historic mounts, under the scrutiny of the court, and with the knowledge that errors would be both irreversible and very public — demanded a standard of craft that shaped the firm's culture across generations.

Garrard's place in the history of jewellery is thus threefold: as an institution of state, entrusted with the physical continuity of the Crown Jewels across more than a century and a half; as a commercial jewellery house of the first rank, whose output shaped taste and set standards for the London trade; and as a workshop whose craftsmen handled some of the most significant gemstones in recorded history. That combination of institutional gravity and technical accomplishment is unlikely to be replicated.

Further Reading

• GIA Gems & Gemology — The Cullinan Diamonds (Ian Balfour)
• Historic Royal Palaces — The Crown Jewels