2013
SX4387 : Detail of carved knife showing IXL feature
taken 11 years ago, near to Stowford, Devon, England
Detail of carved knife showing IXL feature
A curious detail, only just visible in the photo, was added to the knife blade - the letters IXL which Hems adopted for his own self-promotion (inditing his proud boast... namely:- "I excel"). The letters, with an asterisk as in I*XL, were initially a corporate mark formally registered to his mother's Wostenholm family who ran a large and very successful Sheffield firm of cutlers.
SX4387 : Bench end - St. John the Baptist
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Harry Hems as a young boy had been unsuccessfully apprenticed to his grandparent's firm of cutlers but abandoned it to take up an apprenticeship with a Sheffield woodcarver.
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