This image, from Dandy gallery 2, is of fabric-covered button with the backmark Hammond Turner & Sons Elliott’s Patent.
A high-court case dated 1st June 1843 mentions an indenture dated 22nd May 1841 giving HT&S the license to use Elliott’s patent method at Mr Hasluck’s premises in Summer Lane (or wherever) on payment of a royalty.
The judge appears to have upheld Elliott’s petition to revoke the licence.The evidence recorded in the case suggests that this button was made between May 1841 and May 1842. My great great grandfather, Samuel Hammond Turner, was not one of the signatories to that indenture: it was signed by his brothers William Hammond Turner, James Turner and Henry Turner. Samuel died (suddenly, of a stroke) in November 1841, before the case was brought.
The case is written in that peculiarly dull version of legal English which makes you give up the will to carry on reading, full as it is of reiterations of previously-stated facts. It mentions an employee of HT&S, one Edward Lacey, a clerk: it was his forgetfulness which led to the case being brought. If Edward Lacey was your ancestor, I will gladly send you a transcription of the judgement in which he is mentioned!
