Bellerby & Co, Globemakers
TypeLtd
IndustryBespoke globemakers
Founded2008
FounderPeter Bellerby
Headquarters7 Bouverie Mews
London, N16 0AE
United Kingdom
ProductsGlobes
Number of employees
25 (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Websitebellerbyandco.com

Bellerby & Co, Globemakers is a privately owned English company based in Stoke Newington, North London, specialising in the manufacture of artisanal handcrafted globes.

History

After a career in television, Peter Bellerby was running a music venue in London that included a bowling alley, when he started a search for a special globe for his father's 80th birthday. Not finding what he wanted, he set about making a globe himself by hand which led to the founding of the company in 2008.[1][2]

Two globes were commissioned for the 2011 film Hugo.[1] In 2012, the company hosted the first globe exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society,[3] and in the same year, an egg-shaped Bellerby globe was donated to The Faberge Big Egg Hunt charity for auction in London. The auction raised £11,100 for the Elephant Family conservation movement. A second "egg" globe was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York in 2014 and raised $25,000, for both Elephant Family and Action for Children.[4][5]

The company has collaborated with British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, for example on a "globe head" for his ballerina statue for the Royal Opera House.[6]

In 2017 the company made about 500 globes,[7] including a commissioned globe that illustrates Royal Ascot's 300-year heritage.[8]

In 2018 the company received a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the international trade category.[9] It also took part in the Homo Faber exhibition,[10] collaborated with artist George Butler in an exhibition at the Bankside Gallery,[11] and was commissioned by the family of Reinhold Würth to create a Churchill Globe for his 83rd birthday. The globe displays places and events which played an important role in his life.[12]

In 2021 the company received a second Queen's Award for Enterprise in the international trade category.[13] They also collaborated with British brand DAKS on a line of silk scarves,[14] and with jewellery designers Hirsh on a small collection of illustrated desktop globes.[15]

Bloomsbury Publishing commissioned a book about the company which was released in 2023.[16] The book covers not only Bellerby's own journey to becoming a globemaker, but the roots of the craft itself, from the ancients Greeks and their predecessors who first discovered the Earth was a sphere, all the way through to Martin Behaim's Erdapfel, the world's oldest surviving terrestrial globe created in Nuremberg between 1492 and 1494 and beyond to the Renaissance periods of the 17th and 18th centuries when globemaking was at its zenith.[17]

Globemaking

Bellerby & Co's 'Churchill' globe being painted

Originally made from hemispheres of plaster of Paris glued together,[18] the company's small globes are now made from resin and the larger from composite materials.[19] The company employs three cartographers and uses a modern map of their own design that customers are invited to customise. The maps are printed onto paper gores and cut by hand. The paper is wet and stretched across the sphere before being hand painted and finished with a matte or gloss finish.[19] The globes are weighted so they come slowly to rest when spun.[18]

The wood and metal bases are made in the company's London studio. Their 80 series is made in connection with heritage technicians from Aston Martin.[20] Some bases are mounted on ball bearings,[21] others can be spun within hand-engraved solid brass meridians.

The "Pocket Globe", at around five inches in diameter, is the smallest made by the company.[22]

The "Churchill Globe", at around fifty inches in diameter, is the largest made by the company.[23] Its design is based on a Weber Costello, Chicago-made globe presented to Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt by George Marshall, the US Army's Chief of Staff during World War II.[21][24]

References

  1. 1 2 Jones, Gerry (29 March 2015). "Bellerby & Co Globemakers: No Ordinary Orb". Merchant & Makers. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
  2. ↑ "Meet the Craftsman Who Makes the World's Coolest Globes". WIRED. 14 October 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  3. ↑ "Bellerby & Co. exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington – The Guide to Kensington & Chelsea". Kensington-chelsea.com. 4 September 2012. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  4. ↑ "Thank You New York – Globemakers". Bellerbyandco.com. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  5. ↑ "Egg Globe – Bellerby Globe Makers". Paddle8. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  6. ↑ "Yinka Shonibare's Ballerina @ Royal Opera House on Vimeo". Vimeo.com. 7 June 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  7. ↑ "From $150,000 in Debt to $4 Million in Revenue: How One Man Built a Wildly Successful Globe-Making Business". 9 August 2018.
  8. ↑ "Ascot Racecourse unveils globe mapping its horse racing history". 3 March 2017.
  9. ↑ "2018 « Award Year «". queensawardsmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2 May 2018.
  10. ↑ "Homo Faber Programme".
  11. ↑ "Migration is explored by award winning war illustrator | London Live". www.londonlive.co.uk. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018.
  12. ↑ "Take a trip around the world with Reinhold Würth | Würth Group".
  13. ↑ "Winners". The Queen's Awards for Enterprise Magazine. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  14. ↑ "DAKS X Bellerby Co". DAKS. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  15. ↑ Brough, David (30 January 2021). "Hirsh London collaborates with Bellerby & Co Globemakers". Jewellery Outlook. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  16. ↑ bloomsbury.com. "The Globemakers". Bloomsbury. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  17. ↑ https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend/2023/09/29/the-globemaker-with-the-whole-world-in-his-hands-and-not-just-earth/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1696053833
  18. 1 2 Hannah Booth (16 August 2013). "Wood, sweat and tears | Life and style". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  19. 1 2 "Peter Bellerby: Bespoke Globes".
  20. ↑ http://www.handfulofsalt.com/peter-bellerby-x-bellerby-co/
  21. 1 2 Leech, Nick (5 February 2015). "Bespoke globes from Bellerby & Co Globemakers". The National. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
  22. ↑ "12cm Pocket Globe Collection". Globemakers. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  23. ↑ "Bellerby & Co. Globemakers The Churchill – Our Globes". Bellerbyandco.com. Archived from the original on 27 May 2015. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  24. ↑ Robinson, Arthur H (1997). "The President's Globe". Imago Mundi. 49: 143–152. doi:10.1080/03085699708592865. JSTOR 1151340.

51°33′45″N 0°04′43″W / 51.5625°N 0.0785°W / 51.5625; -0.0785

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