A novelty silver ship lantern cigarette box and lighter, the lighter Jacob & Sons, London, 1902; the box Benzie (Cowes) Ltd., London, 1937

Samuel Jacob (27 June 1838 – 6 May 1913), a native of Falmouth, Cornwall, was one of the children of Moss (Moses) Jacob Jacob (1812-1860), a pawnbroker and tailor/outfitter, and his wife, Frances Esther (Feighlah) (née Emanuel, 1810-1875). It is likely that the latter, who was born in Portsea, Hampshire, was related to the family of the well-known firm of retail goldsmiths, E. & E. Emanuel of Portsmouth and Portsea. The 1861 and 1871 Census returns record Samuel Jacob, still living in Falmouth, respectively as a merchant and outfitter and jeweller. By the time of the 1881, described as a merchant, he was living with his wife and children in the Hackney district of London. On 31 May that year he entered a joint mark at Goldsmiths’ Hall with Judah (Julius Loewe) Rosenthal (Culme, no. 9956), trading as Rosenthal, Jacob & Co., 4 Southampton Street, art workers in silver, hand mirrors, hair brushes and every description of small work and jewellery in quaint and antique patterns. The partnership was dissolved on 20 September 1892, after which Jacob, with his son Ernest Arthur Jacob (31 August 1869 – 25 May 1946) removed to 22 Air Street, Piccadilly, where their business, trading as ‘Manufacturing Artistic Silversmiths,’ flourished as Jacob & Sons. Although Samuel Jacob retired on 29 September 1908, Jacob & Sons, moving in 1912 to 47 Poland Street, Soho, continued until about 1915/16. The 1939 England and Wales Register records Ernest Arthur Jacob as a commercial traveller in silver and china.

The maker’s or sponsor’s mark on the cigarette box in this lot is that of Herbert Simpson Benzie (31 March 1872 – 7 February 1952), one of the children of Simpson Benzie (1 May 1834 – 10 November 1915), founder of the well-known retail goldsmiths and jewellers of that name of High Street, Cowes, Isle of Wight.