Russian, A. H. Whishaw & Co Seal, Image by StuE, Found by Goretex.
Found in Yorkshire, 20mm,10.3g.
The first side has a complex circular border and curved around the inside of this is A.(H?).WHISH[A]W & Co. The H could possibly be an E but does not look at all like a G as in A.G. Whishaw Ltd.* The centre is occupied by the Roman numeral II as in the Hills & Whishaw seals mentioned below. The other side appears to have been struck off centre and shows only a single large letter, probably the Cyrillic У = U.
Different Hills & Whishaw seals can be seen in John Sullivan, 'Russian Cloth Seals in Britain Trade, Textiles and Origins', 2012, Figs. 30 a and b and 31 a and b. More interesting detail on the families can be found on page 26 ("Alfred Whishaw ... was by 1861 a wholesale trader at the port of St Petersburg in the firm of *A.G. Whishaw), page 34 ("Hills and Whishaw, established in Archangel around 1842 by William Whishaw.") and page 46.
FOR TWO CENTURIES after the foundation of St Petersburg 1703, the British merchant community- exercised a remarkable influence over the city's economic relations with the wider world. This community operated as a 'City of London' in miniature, and where the merchants led others--diplomats, travellers, soldiers, sailors, engineers, craftsmen and others--followed.The St Petersburg Exchange, built in the early 19th century and painted in 1891 by Alexander Beggrov. Englishman Edwin Coates working in the works' manager's office of Thornton's thread mill. St Petersburg, shortly before the First World War.To the English in the sixteenth century the idea of a northern route to the Indies had a particular appeal, and in 1553, in search of such a passage, the Edward Bonaventure cast anchor off the southern shore of the White Sea. For England, this venture established a thriving trade with Russia through Archangel; for Russia, it offered the prospect of secure and direct commercial links with Western Europe. The ship's return to England heralded the formation in London of the Muscovy Company, which sent annual cargoes of cloth, silks, tropical and Mediterranean goods in return for pelts, wax, tar and pitch. Finding it more economical to export Russian hemp in a processed form, English merchants set up a rope works near Archangel. It soon enjoyed a high reputation. (...houses both in St Petersburg and an important credit-granting centre in Western Europe--increasingly in London. One such, Hill Wishaw, also had political influence through Thomas Mitchell, the senior partner of its London agents, who was Liberal MP for Bridport...) from 'On the Banks of the Neva: British Merchants in St Petersburg before the Russian Revolution'
Magazine article by Stuart Thompstone; History Today, Vol. 53, December 2003.
"The Whishaws were one of several interrelated Anglo-Russian trading families that flourished in St Petersburg before the Revolution. Her father, Bernhard Whishaw (1779-1868), and various relatives resettled in Cheltenham during the late 19th century, and several of them were buried in Leckhampton Churchyard.
Bernhard Whishaw was an imposing figure, six feet tall, with a red beard but no moustache or whiskers. He was a senior partner of the firm Hills and Whishaw, by far the oldest in St Petersburg, and when he entered the Exchange there, everyone in the building would bow with great respect."
This Wikipedia entry for Fred Whishaw also mentions the company - "Frederick James Whishaw was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, to English-born parents, Bernard Whishaw of Cheltenham and Isabel Maria Cattley, on 14 March 1854; he was one of eight children. His family had been in Russia since the 18th century. ... Unhappy with his occupation, Whishaw left Hills & Whishaw and eventually emigrated to England after his marriage to Ethel Charlotte Moberly on 30 March 1880." From Eminent Cheltonians Commemorated at Leckhampton by ERIC MILLER
COMMERCIAL GAZETTE 6 Jan 1849 (The Spectator Archive), "Tuesday, January 2. PARTNERSHIPS DISSOLVED. Hill, Brothers, Riga, merchants ; as far as regards J. H. Hill-Hills and Whishaw, St. Petersburg, merchants ; as far as regards B. and W Whishaw and J.H. Hill-,.T. and S. Kennard,London, merchants- Hill and Co, Archangel, merchants"
