April 26th 1731. Lost or mislaid, One

Pair of large Brilliant Diamond Ear

Rings, with Drops of the first Water and 

one odd Night Ear-Ring, with three Bril-

liant Diamonds: three large Bars for the

Breast, set of Rose Diamonds.

If offer'd to be sold, pawn'd or valued,

pray stop them and the *PARTY, and give

Notice to Mr. Drummond, Goldsmith at

Charing Cross, and you shall receive Two

Hundred Guineas Reward for the same.

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*Especially if it be a young Lady.

This advertisement is extraordinary for two reasons: the first being its mention of Andrew Drummond, the Goldsmith Banker, and further for the remarkable sum offered in reward.  Two hundred guineas is around £36,000 in modern money.  That isn't the worth of the diamonds, it is the reward only.  The young lady in question would no doubt have been sought high and low, and there is clearly more to this story than meets the eye.  Who was the lady thief and where did she find such spoils?

Andrew Drummond was one of an emerging class of 'gentlemen' goldsmith bankers during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  Goldsmiths had fortified premises and/or workshops to protect their stock, bullion and takings.  They employed round the clock security and spent time and money establishing relationships with their clients.  They took in large sums, and so had money to lend.  By 1696, Huguenot goldsmith David Willaume is recorded as 'running cashes' at his shop near the Savoy Chapel (more on him in another post).  Running cashes meant taking in money or silver/gold/jewellery and issuing a 'cash note' to the client.  The cash note was of course, no more than a piece of paper, like a receipt quoting figures, so it was imperative that the goldsmith was a man of impeccable integrity.  Early bankers were upstanding members of their own communities, in possession of enormous cash stocks and the respect of influential (and sometimes but not always, hard-up) aristocrats and also the middle-classes who preferred to have their money kept safe.

Messrs Drummond went on to become part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, an event that no doubt has Andrew Drummond twisting in his grave.  His portrait, by Johann Zoffany is one of the 2,200 estimated works of art belonging to the Royal Bank of Scotland (which is, of course, 70% owned by the tax-payer).  The bank no longer employs a curator (which would cost a paltry sum in the scheme of the massive financial balls-up of RBS) and there are worries parts of the collection may have been lost, or damaged, or that the bank simply may not know where the pictures are.  They are currently refusing to disclose a full list of what is in their possession, although the collection is said to contain at least 46 works of historical importance.  I think this is very naughty indeed.