Goldsmiths' Fair filled the City's hallmarking hall for two weeks in 2025 with 136 independent makers, and an exhibition paired David Watkins with Wendy Ramshaw.
Goldsmiths’ Fair filled Goldsmiths’ Hall in Foster Lane for two weeks in 2025, from Tuesday 23 to Sunday 28 September and from Tuesday 30 September to Sunday 5 October, with the Monday between them closed.
The Goldsmiths’ Company is one of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of the City of London, and it has tested precious metal since a statute of Edward I set the standard in 1300. The word hallmark comes from the practice of bringing work to this hall to be struck. The fair has been held in the building since 1983, and each exhibitor makes by hand, with an element of precious metal in every piece.
Up to ten bursary places a year go to early-career makers. In 2025 The Betts Group, a Birmingham Jewellery Quarter firm with more than 260 years behind it, gave the bursary recipients four kilograms of AgAIN silver bullion, reclaimed from medical X-ray films.
The 2025 fair had 136 exhibitors and three exhibitions. A New Vision paired David Watkins, born in 1940, with Wendy Ramshaw, who died in 2018, as one of the most significant artist couples in late twentieth-century jewellery. Interwoven looked at jewellery that grows from the meeting of jewellery and textiles. Ella Fearon-Low’s Jewels for the Hall set sculptural installations in the building’s own rooms, each responding to a particular space, idea or material.