Stashed away

The vast collection of the late George Withers, encompassing everything from Prattware pot lids to barometers, doubles up as a guide to the mid-market collecting fancies of the past 60 years

GEORGE WITHERS (1946-2023) must have been one of the world's greatest hoarders. Every now and again, we hear of someone who has made their house impenetrable with a lifetime of accumulations, but usually the trove turns out to consist of rotting newspapers, motheaten clothes, holed shoes, broken furniture, damaged crockery, cereal packets, advertising fliers and the like.

Withers was different. He was, in his own fashion, an antique dealer and he had a good eye for traditional quality. Although he had a stall in the Portobello Road market for a while, his life was largely lived out in Gloucestershire and Avon. Born just south of Bristol, he was brought up on a farm to the north and later lived at Bathampton and Peasedown. At 14, he struggled home with a longcase clock and at 15 he left school to work in a malthouse, but was already dealing. His first shop in Bath followed when he reached 21. As the historical-medals specialist Timothy Millett puts it: 'I never bought anything cheaply from George, but I was always pleased with what I bought.'

However, Withers had a serious drawback as a dealer: a passion for buying, but an increasing reluctance to sell. His houses filled up, with vinaigrettes kept in an oven or hidden in caddies, silver might be under the floorboards and, for security, teapots and their lids, or longcases and their heads, would be kept in different rooms.

House clearance was a massive task for the auctioneers Dore & Rees of Frome and Wincanton Auctions, which undertook it jointly. In the end, 25,000 very varied items were removed for cataloguing; some have been held back for specialist sales, but, earlier this year, the rest were offered in 2,274 lots at Dore & Rees and 1,301 at Wincanton.