Asprey and Sons, London, Illuminated Traveling Lamp. Marked Asprey & Sons 166 New Bond St. London. Nickel plated, with articulated candle holder, beveled clear lens with hinged door, brass handles, and hanging hook.

Size: 3 X 2 X 6 3/4 in.

#5411 .

The Asprey Company was originally founded as a silk printing business by William Asprey and his son Charles in Mitcham, Surrey 1781. In 1847 Charles Asprey and his son Charles Asprey II moved the business to 166 Bond Street, London. A dressing case they entered into the Great Exhibition of 1851 received an “Honourable Mention” for their quality of workmanship, and established their reputation for luxury and exclusivity with a broader clientele. In 1862 Queen Victoria awarded them with a Royal Warrant for their dressing cases, traveling bags, and writing cases. In 1872, the business name officially changed to Charles Asprey & Son, and later in 1879 to Charles Asprey & Sons with the inclusion of Charles Asprey III. In 1889, the business was renamed C & G.E Asprey, and the last name change of the nineteenth century was in 1900, when the business became known as Asprey & Co. The mark on this particular piece indicates that it was manufactured some time between 1879 and 1889, a time in which nearly all outdoor lamps had converted from candlelight to gaslight, shortly to be replaced by electricity with the dawn of the 20th Century.