The Son's of Charles Horner.

When Charles Horner Snr. died in 1896, the company passed to his two sons, James Dobson Horner and Charles Henry Horner, (AKA Harry). Harry was the artistic one of the two, while his older brother James was the one with his father's business head on his shoulders. Together the two brothers transformed the company and took it into, (what is, for collectors of Charles Horner), their golden age.

A state on the art factory was built in 1905 to mass produce the fashionable jewellery designs of young Harry, which were heavily influenced at the time by Liberty's own art nouveau designer, Archibald Knox.

It does make me smile when I read other antique dealers extolling the skill and craftsmanship, and eye for detail of Charles Horner at this time, as if it was the man himself creating the items by hand in his tiny little workshop, instead of mass produced pieces by his two son's in a state of the art factory.

Unfortunately James Dobson Horner died in 1913 at the age of 46, and was a major loss to the new 'Limited' company, which never fully lived up to it's early promise. Despite two world wars and the economic depression of the 1920s, the company did somehow manage to survive until 1984, although Harry sold most of his shares in the business in 1932, ending there the Horner family control.