The Anonymous Widower

Memories of My Grandfather – Henry Millbank

I never met my grandfather, Henry Millbank, as he died a few months before I was born.  All I have is a couple of photographs at my parents’ wedding in 1946.

He was an engraver and one of his specialities was to engrave the die by which names and other words were stamped on to pencils.  These days nearly all pencils are hexagonal and that according to my mother, is because her father was the last person with the skills to engrave one for a round pencil. Apparently, according to my mother in the last years of his life, people were always asking him to engrave others, as there was no-one else. 

Interestingly, you now get engraved round pencils again, but that is because computers and the machines they control can do what few craftsman can.

September 4, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | World | Art, Family