Robert Garrard the elder, born in 1758 and active in London until his death in 1818, is the figure under whose name the firm of Garrard & Co. assumed its modern identity. He took managing control of the partnership previously known as Wakelin & Garrard in 1792, and in 1802, on the dissolution of that partnership, he reconstituted the business as R. & S. Garrard with his sons. Under his leadership and that of his son Robert Garrard the younger, who took over in 1818, the firm transitioned from one of several reputable London goldsmiths to the dominant supplier of British royal and aristocratic jewellery in the nineteenth century.

The family firm

The roots of the firm extend back to George Wickes, the goldsmith who founded the partnership in 1735 and from whom both Wakelin and Garrard descended through marriage and apprenticeship. Wickes had supplied Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the firm's connection to the royal family was already well established when Robert Garrard joined as a partner in 1792. The transition from Wakelin & Garrard to R. & S. Garrard in 1802 marked the moment at which the Garrard name became the principal identifier of the business.

Robert Garrard the younger, taking control on his father's death in 1818, expanded the firm's clientele beyond the established aristocratic and royal commissions to a broader luxury market in the early Victorian period. He moved the premises to Panton Street in 1817 and oversaw the firm's growth through the second quarter of the century.

Crown Jeweller

The firm's pivotal commercial event was the appointment in 1843 as Crown Jewellers to Queen Victoria, succeeding Rundell and Bridge. The Crown Jeweller appointment, which carried the responsibility for the maintenance and re-setting of the Crown Jewels, the production of new royal commissions, and the curation of state ceremonial pieces, was held by Garrard from 1843 until 2007. The 164-year tenure is the longest of any British Crown Jeweller and established Garrard as the firm most closely associated with British royal jewellery in the public mind.

The Imperial State Crown and other royal commissions

Garrard's royal output during the Robert Garrard the younger period and the decades immediately following includes work on the Imperial State Crown made for Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838 (the original Imperial State Crown of 1838, since superseded by the 1937 version), the redesign of the Sovereign's Sceptre to incorporate the Cullinan I diamond in 1910, the production of the State Crown of George IV (1821), and numerous tiaras, parures, and orders of chivalry for the British and connected royal houses.

The firm also supplied the high aristocracy and visiting royal commissions across the Empire. Garrard's order books from the nineteenth century constitute one of the most important documentary archives of British royal and aristocratic jewellery practice.

Workshop practice

Under the Garrard family the firm operated as both a designer-goldsmith and a retailer, with workshops producing in-house and a network of suppliers and specialist craftsmen for materials and techniques the firm did not handle directly. The order books document this hybrid practice in detail, with entries for stones, gold, fittings, and finishing distributed across multiple specialists. The model was characteristic of the leading Victorian jewellery houses and contrasts with the more vertically integrated workshops that emerged later under Cartier, Boucheron, and other Continental firms.

Legacy

The Garrard name continues today as a London jewellery house, though the firm has changed hands multiple times since the family's direct involvement ended in the early twentieth century. The 1843 to 2007 Crown Jeweller tenure remains the firm's defining historical credential, and its origin lies in the consolidation of the family business by Robert Garrard the elder in 1802.

Further reading

• Victoria and Albert Museum — Garrard archive material
• Royal Collection Trust — Crown Jewels and Garrard commissions
• British Museum — historic British goldsmiths