This advert appeared in the Tiverton Gazette in early October 1925 and we have a copy of it in the Museum Library. The volume was originally published in 1898.

John Sharland was a watchmaker and silversmith. This was the trade ‘chosen for him by his parents’, as shown in the letter above.

His business in Gold Street was very successful and the introduction to his book shows him to have been very active in ‘public affairs’. He was on Lord Palmerston’s ‘committee’ for 30 years. The censuses taken in 1851 and 1861 show that his brother, a printer, joined him in Gold Street and the business became a booksellers too. John eventually became a wholesale dealer to ‘jewellers, ironmongers and fancy dealers throughout the West of England’.

As well as his work within the Liberal Party, he also founded the YMCA in Tiverton and St Peter’s Lodge of Freemasons. He was member of the Congregational Church. His death in 1903, and subsequent funeral, were widely reported both in the local and national press.

We have one rather special example of John’s clock making skills. It is on the wall of the Heathcoat Gallery at the Museum because, until 1977, it was in use in the net folding department of the factory. The clock is set in a papier-mache frame and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Written by Museum Volunteer Sue B.