Uniform buttons

No backmark. Lovely quality die-sinking on this George 5th button (1910-1936)

Update: Livery button by Stokes & Martin 

Unidentified livery button by Stokes & Martin.

The style of “crown” is a Baron’s coronet. A baron’s coronet has six ‘pearls’ of which 4 are visible when drawn.

As the button was made by Stokes and Martin,  I presumed a Baron living or visiting Melbourne ordered this from 1862-1893. Scanning through newspapers of the period, I  came across 3 Barons although there may have been more: Frederick Von Mueller, Charles Robert Carrington (Governor of Sydney from 1885-1890, and John Adrian Louis Hope (Victorian Governor from 1889-1895).

This turned out to be a misdirection, as the button is the livery for Lord Brassey who followed Hope as the Governor of Victoria from 1895-1900. He must have ordered the buttons before 1893, or more likely, the buttons were produced with old backs.

State Library Victoria: IE844568

From Wikipedia

The button above is in error. It should show an Earl’s coronet, as this livery button shared on Twitter by Anne Brassey shows:

Even this button is not correct; the Earl’s coronet has eight ‘pearls’ of which five are meant to be visible. This button may have been trying to show all eight. The bird is a mallard (i.e. a duck).

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronet

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brassey-thomas-5339

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