A Tribute to Roy Huddlestone
03 Jan 2024
On the 23rd December 2023, our industry – and in particular the valuing community – lost one of its leading, long-standing members. Until he retired in 2017 at the age of 87, after 73 years in the trade, Roy Huddlestone was a director of Hatton Garden-based Huddlestone Gemmological Consultants and UK agent for EGL.
He began his long, illustrious career in 1944 at 14 as an apprentice clock, watch and jewellery maker and repairer in Nottingham. This sparked his interest in gemstones and equipment, and he started his extensive collection. National Service in the RAF as an aircraft instruments mechanic followed, and after being demobbed, Roy worked for several jewellery retailers, rising through the ranks.
His love of precious gems brought him to Hatton Garden in 1968, where he established Diamond Grading Laboratories Ltd (the first dedicated diamond certification laboratory in Europe) while also working as a director/buyer for a rough diamond company. “He was the first person to identify the diamond mapping technique whereby you could recut a large diamond and still identify it as being a larger diamond, perhaps stolen!” says Barry Sullivan.
The end of the 1960s through to 1972 saw innovations and pioneering ideas emanating from his office, including the first ever diamond price matrix (which was quoted monthly in the FT) and the first diamond colour measuring spectrophotometer. A modified form of his system to grade the clarity of diamonds is still in use in the HRD lab in Antwerp.
Image: Roy participating in a tiara workshop at the Valuers' Conference, 2017.
When asked, in a 2013 interview in The Jeweller, about career high points, Roy said: “Being commissioned, secretly, to evaluate technically and value for private sale, two famous diamonds… the Sancy, 55.23 carats – now in the Louvre museum – and the Star of the South, 129 carats from Brazil, now in private hands.” He said that he relaxed by playing on his three-manual Yamaha electronic organ and was learning to play a Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. Roy was also a volunteer tour guide of mechanical instruments at the Musical Museum.
Roy is remembered as a kind and very generous man throughout his career. One of his last acts of generosity was to give the NAJ an exact copy of the David Wilkins Award that he had won, which will be given in his honour to future high-achieving students completing the JET Foundations of Appraisal Practice qualification. He is survived by his three sons, Jonathan, James, and Jason, as well as four grandchildren.
The funeral will be held on Tuesday, 23rd January. Donations in lieu of flowers in Roy's memory, if desired, can be made to the Musical Museum in Brentford. This charity has been chosen due to it being Roy's second passion in life and his volunteer work there.
Make a donation