enduring quality and permanence about it which has permeated Robert's work" – Jeremy Myerson. The industrial design side of the business, Robert Welch Associates, produced work for clients including Royal Doulton, British Railways, Guinness, BOAC, H. E. Lauffer, Carl Prinz and Poole Pottery. Silversmithing Robert Welch continued to work in silver throughout his career, creating elegant one-off designs in response to commissions for ecclesiastical, institutional, ceremonial and domestic plate. In the late 1950s, the silversmith and artist John Limbrey (1933–2013), who had also previously studied silversmithing at Birmingham, came on a visit to the Cotswolds. He knocked on the door of the studio-workshop and said "What a nice place to work, do you want any help?" He began working with Welch in 1958, from which point he was largely responsible for making most of the commissioned ecclesiastical and domestic silverware. He remained as silversmith, model maker and draughtsman until well into the 21st century. In 1960, Prince Philip commissioned Robert Welch to design and produce a silver trophy, known as the Prince Philip Silver Wink, which has been awarded since 1961 to the top British university tiddlywinks team competing in inter-university matches. Inspiration “Early on I was inspired by architecture, by Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer. I went to see Corbusier's Ronchamp chapel just after it was built. But lately, my sources of inspiration have been painters and sculptors, Brancusi and Giacometti, for example." Robert Welch “It’s one of these questions which is always asked: ‘Where does one draw one’s inspiration from?’. There is no one source, one just sort of reacts to life, rather like a light meter, you can see things under any conditions, in any circumstances. Of course consciously one can keep one's mind alert; I like to spend a great deal of time in museums, I like to carefully study all sorts of things, I enjoy looking and browsing through books on old silver, books on old iron. Inspiration can come from anywhere, from bubbles, from looking at a beehive, from looking at a bird's nest, anything can happen. It's just one of these things which cannot be really pinpointed, you just (...) are alert and aware and receptive, and somehow things just happen.” Robert Welch Awards and honours 1962 Elected FSIA (Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists) 1965 Elected RDI (Royal Designer for Industry) – a faculty within the Royal Society