Plain Pine

This dessert knife is part of a service initially designed for the tourist-class (second class) dining room of the Queen Mary, the transatlantic Cunard liner. The dining room itself was panelled in pine and this service was called the Plain Pine range. It proved so popular that it was re-used for the Queen Mary’s sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth. Walter Patrick Belk (1872-1963), who designed it, was one of the directors of Roberts & Belk, a well-known firm of manufacturing platers and silversmiths established in Sheffield in 1810. Traditionally the firm had a ‘high class’ goods range – ‘every piece designed by the firm’s own staff’. Belk, originally an architect, was immensely supportive of

Knife · Sheffield · 1936. Electroplate, with stainless steel blade. By Walter Patrick Belk. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.