Exploring the auction scene in Dublin 100 years ago

This weekend, 100 years ago, the six-day Easter Rising was coming to an end and Dublin’s commercial life was slowly resuming after considerable upheaval and destruction. But what was going on in Dublin’s auction houses in 1916?

On Saturday, April 22nd – just 48 hours before the Rising began – Bennett & Son of 6 Upper Ormond Quay announced that its forthcoming sale, scheduled for Thursday April 27th at 12.30pm, involved a house clearance sale on the premises of number 15 St Stephen’s Green.

The planned auction featured “all the valuable furniture and appointments of the residence” and included an “electric vacuum cleaner” , a pair of “hammerless ejector guns”, “a unique suite of Burmese Carved Wood dining-room furniture”, “old Eastern embroideries and Mandarin Robes”, “Marquetry and Chippendale-style cabinets”, “early Chinese crystal, jade and porcelain snuff bottles”, “brass and oak twin beds”, “Old Sheffield Plated Ware”; a “few pieces of Waterford Glass” and, most astonishingly, “a number of Pekingese Dogs”. Apparently the residents of the house had kennels. They were also selling their “Clement 28-H.P. Motor Car (1913), Six-Seater with cabriolet body . . . luxuriously upholstered”.

The house had been the home of a doctor, Francis T Heuston, who had died. He had been leasing the house from Dublin Corporation.

Bennett’s also announced a separate auction for Wednesday, April 26th, 1916 on the premises at “Manulla” on Sydenham Villas, Dundrum, in south Co Dublin, featuring “well-made modern furniture”, including “a set of mahogany dining tables, marble-top washstands, walnut chairs and tables, walnut, pine and painted wardrobes and a lawn mower, iron roller and garden tools”.

Presumably these auctions were cancelled when the events of Easter Monday erupted.

By May, life in the city was pretty much back to normal and commercial life – and auction salerooms – were busy again.

On Monday, May 22nd, 1916, Adam's Salerooms at 19 St Stephen's Green (today it is in number 26) announced in The Irish Times that viewing was under way for an auction of "Superior Household Furniture and Effects" on the following day, Tuesday, May 23rd.

Lots included: an "Érard" grand piano, a "Louis" music cabinet, a pair of "Heavy Gold and Pearl Bracelets", a "Set of Gold and Diamond Studs", an "old Coloured Bartolozzi Engraving The Woodman", an antique gilt convex mirror, a walnut davenport, an antique oak blanket-chest and "Axminster" and "Brussels" room and stair carpets.

Other items included “Walnut and Oak Bedroom Suites”, “Meat Safes”, a “Vacuum Cleaner”, “Iron Garden Roller, Wheelbarrow, Garden Seats, Brass and Iron bedsteads”, “Spring and Hair Mattresses”, and “Inlaid Bracket and Hall Clocks”. No estimates were published and prospective bidders were told: “Purchasers to Pay 5 per cent auction fees.”

On the same day, Walpoles' Royal Irish Linen Manufacturers of Suffolk Street ran an ad in the paper with the (surely unintentional?) strap line "Prices are Rising", announcing its ongoing sale and saying: "Those ladies who have not yet bought are asked to do so now – to prevent possible disappointment." The ad said, "Linen is Scarce" (possibly because of the first World War), adding: "It is the opportunity to buy at greatly reduced prices goods that will command very high prices in the future."

Among the bargains were linen tablecloths with either an “Ivy and Berries” or “poppy” design. The price for a cloth, measuring 2 yards by 2 yards, was 10 shillings. These are now officially antiques and would be desirable to collectors of Irish linen.

‘Sinn Féin Rebellion’

Another ad in the paper that day was headlined: "Compare Our Prices With Auctions Or Sales'" This was for house furnishers Anderson, Stanford & Ridgeway, of 28 and 29 Grafton Street which had no fewer than three telephone numbers: Dublin 934, 935 or 606.

Its furniture was made at factories on Boyne Street and Lemon Street and it was offering a “Solid Fumed Oak Bedroom Suite comprising Wardrobe, 6ft wide, with large bevelled mirror; Dressing Chest 3ft 6in wide; Washstand 3ft 6in wide; and 3 solid oak chairs”, all for “pounds 24 and 15 shillings”. For another “pounds 6 and 6 shillings” it offered to throw in a “Fumed Oak Bedstead, to match, for Double bedroom”. Surviving pieces of this furniture are now also, of course, antiques.

A small ad in the paper by stationery firm Hely’s offered readers the chance to buy: “Sinn Féin Rebellion: Twelve Picture Postcards, Dublin Ruins, etc.” They’re certainly collectible now.