David Mellor Vintage Cutlery

I accidentally bought 72 pieces of vintage David Mellor cutlery at auction last month. OK, it wasn’t exactly an accident — more of an unnecessary and impulsive purchase, if waiting three years for some Mellor cutlery to come up for auction can be described as impulsive.

If you’ve read my recent post on the Liberty Bauhaus fabric, you’ll already know I have a tendency to get fixated on objects. It all started three years ago when I visited the David Mellor shop on New Cavendish Street in London. On display were various cutlery designs Mellor had created over the decades, including the Chinese range from 1975. With its striking modernist design combining bright ‘Milan Green’ (I’m coining that term) acetal resin handles with stainless steel — the first cutlery to feature this combination of materials — I immediately wanted it. When I asked how much it was, I was told it was no longer manufactured. So, of course, I wanted it even more.

Described by Terence Conran as ‘Britain’s most serious, modest and greatest post-war designer’, David Mellor was born in Sheffield in 1930 — a city renowned for its steel industry and as the centre of cutlery production in Britain since the 17th century. In 1945, Mellor attended Sheffield College of Art, where he was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and its emphasis on craftsmanship, while also responding to the optimism of the Modern Movement in the wake of the Second World War. By 1950, Mellor had enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London — just a year before the Festival of Britain. He later described this period as, “a time of great excitement; you felt as if you were putting the world together again”. It was during his time at the RCA that he designed Pride — a modern, elegant set of silver-plated cutlery, free from embellishment. The design won him a Design Centre Award in 1957 and it remains in production to this day and is one of the company‘s most popular designs. Although best known for his cutlery, Mellor‘s work spanned everything from traffic lights to street furniture.

My first encounter with David Mellor cutlery was in the late 1990s when I worked at a small design studio in Clerkenwell. Every Thursday we’d have lunch at the Golden Fish Restaurant on Farringdon Road which was run by an Italian family. It had that classic 1950s caff-style interior: eight small, Formica-topped tables, secured to the floor, with wooden seats just uncomfortable enough to stop you from lingering too long.

The fish and chips (which I mourn to this day), and the obligatory cup of tea, were served on mismatched, utilitarian crockery and cutlery. Amongst it were Mellor’s Thrift knives and forks, with each piece curiously stamped with HM & Co. A detail that I would have missed had it not been for my boss Andy, who was originally from Sheffield. He explained the range was designed by Mellor in the mid-1960s, commissioned by the government for use in canteens across hospitals, schools, railways and prisons. We always assumed the ones at the Golden Fish Restaurant had probably come from Pentonville prison.

I didn’t pay much attention to my own cutlery at the time, opting for a sturdy and very reasonably priced set from Woolworths (RIP) in the early 2000s which has survived four house moves. Its knives have opened and stirred numerous tins of paint with each renovation project.

Incidentally, when I bought my first flat on the Golden Lane Estate in 2004, we had some friends over for dinner. One of them, a stylist for Wallpaper magazine, clearly assuming we had better taste than we did, picked up a fork and said, ‘Oooh, David Mellor cutlery!’. The poor woman was mortified when we told her it was just Woolies.

Fast forward a few years and I did eventually own some Mellor pieces: a proper set of kitchen knives gifted to me by my sister (thank you), bought from the David Mellor factory and visitor centre in Hathersage, Derbyshire — its building designed by Michael and Patty Hopkins — and a single Odeon teaspoon, although that one wasn’t strictly mine.

About fifteen years ago, my then-partner took me to The River Café for my birthday. Neither of us had been before and, realistically, it was beyond our means. The food was nice enough (I’m half Italian, so I struggle with the idea of paying over £10 for a bowl of pasta), but at the end of the meal, we ordered coffee and were told we couldn’t have it at our table — they needed it back for another booking. This was before the days of being warned you only had the table for 90 minutes. I was so aggrieved by the whole thing that — yes — I took revenge by stealing the teaspoon. I am sorry for my crime, but at the time, it felt entirely justified.

Since I first came across that covetable Chinese cutlery range (did I mention my failed attempt to rally a petition to get it back into production?), I’ve had alerts set up for any David Mellor items that come up at auction. Most of the time, I ignore them — they’re invariably either a teapot or something entirely unrelated to David Mellor.

A few weeks ago I happened to write about David Mellor’s first London shop for my latest Perambulation. Located at 4 Sloane Square, it formed part of a 1960s development — designed by Harrison and West — with commercial space on the ground floor and residential units above.

The shop was a natural next step for Mellor after his success in design and manufacturing. It opened in 1969 when Britain was embracing modern, affordable interior design — a shift led in part by Terence Conran’s Habitat, which had opened on Fulham Road in 1964. Habitat introduced British shoppers to modern homeware, from duvets and Boule Japonais paper shade to the iconic chicken brick. David Mellor: Ironmonger — as the shop was named — positioned itself as ‘the shop where you can get things which work and not just look good’. It sold an eclectic range of items, from nails and screws to handmade pottery, and helped bring quality continental brands such as Le Creuset to the British market. The growing interest in European cookery, spurred by writers like Elizabeth David, made it the right offering at the right time — functional, well-designed and entirely of the moment.

So Mellor was fresh in my mind last month when another auction alert landed in my inbox — and this time, I decided to open it: “A set of David Mellor stainless steel cutlery with burnt orange acetal handles comprising teaspoons, soup spoons, appetiser knives and forks, and dinner knives and forks.” All in their original boxes. Estimated at only £50–70. OK, it wasn’t my beloved Chinese range, but I noted the auction date in my calendar and registered to bid — just in case. Ordinarily, the auction would have come and gone without me noticing, but on this particular day, I was stuck at home with a bad cold. Not ill enough to be in bed, but not well enough to do much more than stare at my computer. The auction kicked off at 10 am, so I watched it live. My lot was number 429. It was going to be a long wait.

Now, I’m fairly well-seasoned when it comes to auctions. I knew it would go for more than £70, but the rest of the lots were an odd mix of Victorian furniture and miscellaneous bits so I felt reasonably confident there wasn't going to be much competition. I’m one of those annoying people who waits for everyone else to finish bidding and then swoops in at the last moment when it looks like no one else is interested. Bad manners, I know. Before I knew it, I was in a head-to-head with another online bidder — someone who didn’t hesitate to outbid me each time. I became convinced they must be a dealer, looking to buy and flip it for profit. Not on my watch, pal. £150. £160. £170. £180. Oh god, make it stop. The final hammer came down at £220. Was that me? Did I win it? I wasn’t sure. Oh god, I hoped not — with fees it would come to over £300, plus delivery. I didn’t even need new cutlery. The Woolworths set was still going strong, let alone spending over £300 on it.

A few hours later, an email confirmed that I had indeed won the lot. Hooray, I think? I contacted the nice people at David Mellor on Instagram:

‘Hi, I’ve just won some David Mellor cutlery at auction — could you tell me what the design is called please?’

A cheery response came back:

‘Wonderful cutlery find! Congratulations. The design you have is called Java from 1977. It was made in a few colours — Black, White, Yellow and Red and also a very small run in Burgundy and Pink. It‘s a brilliant design and we get asked for it as much as Chinese. It's definitely a collector‘s item! Interestingly, our Child’s Cutlery Sets are a part of the Java range. They continued whilst Java didn’t survive a downturn in sales in the early 1990s. It’s a lovely collection, and great to see it in its original boxes with their coloured labels!’

It made me feel less guilty about my extravagant purchase.

The cutlery finally arrived last week — and I must say, I couldn’t be more pleased with it. And, there’s loads of it! A quick calculation reveals it works out at £5 per item — a bargain. Oh, and the Woolworths set is now at the Mind charity shop in Belsize Park, so everyone’s a winner.

Judging by the number of people who asked if I was keeping the cutlery or if I‘d be interested in selling it, I think it’s a sound investment. I’ll just need to have more people over for dinner to make use of it — and probably invest in a proper paint stirrer.

PS. The Sloane Square shop has recently relocated just around the corner to 190 Pavilion Road, London SW3.

All images courtesy David Mellor Design unless otherwise credited. A big thank you to James for sourcing them!