We regret to announce the passing of Geoff Westland who died on Sunday 24th March 2013 at St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney in east London. He was 72 years old. His was a towering presence in the world of architectural salvage.
 
Maggie Westland, his sister, said that Geoff never gave up the fight against 'the demon' (cancer) and was determined to return to her, his home and his business. He was in St Joseph's Hospice from early January this year and she said that they can never repay the doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers for the extraordinary care and support both he and his family and friends received. Geoff was supported throughout his illness by the wonderful team at Westland's who made sure he was never alone. He was often awake at night and they took it in turns to sit at his bedside to keep him company when he awoke. He was very peaceful in those last days.
 
Maggie also said that Westland London will continue to be run by the team in the way Geoff would want it to be run.
 
Adrian Amos offered this eulogy:
Geoff Westland was a Genius - in the proper sense of the term. Dedicated, obsessive, with a pathological attention to detail yet the broadest attention to his discipline and an overwhelming vision of the possibilities. He brought to his calling a supreme sense of style - 'Gross ist Geld' - buy big and ugly - sell grand and magnificent! And of course an academic rigour sans pareil.
 
Overwhelmingly, he brought conviction and enthusiasm to both his personal and business life which were irrevocably intertwined. His friends were his co-workers and those who worked with him were his friends.
 
He was in the grand tradition of antiques dealers - a Duveen of our times - without the social climbing aspect, to his enormous credit, but a master of his dealing field, nevertheless. Any young man considering the antiques trade as a career could do worse than emulate Geoff.
 
It was a privilege and an honour to be his property partner for nearly forty years.
 
He took the architectural salvage model that he and I shared within the magnificent St. Michael's building and, after LASSCO left to fresh pastures, he elevated his trade in Shoreditch to a degree of magnificence (only partly due to this wonderful building) that is, unarguably, of global significance. The name of Westland is known, and rightfully respected, worldwide.
 
This was all achieved by a Stoke Newington lad who followed his Dad into the Met in the 'Dixon of Dock Green' days. His tales of the mean streets of 60's North London - dry, ironic and self deprecating - I remember vividly, and with a chuckle, to this day. And his progress to the elevated position he held in our field was peppered with early reverses which he managed courageously - he commanded, and received, more loyalty from his staff than anyone I know in the trade.
 
And a particular virtue he enjoyed was that of realising a talent of someone who just walked in the door as a hired hand - he recognised and nurtured a spark in the young and enthusiastic that should be a model to every employer in our trade.
 
Geoff was a great companion, marvellous and mercurial company - it was typical of him that he kept his final illness to himself - the effervescent enthusiast, the unbounded optimist, the stubborn striver would not have had it any other way. Deep down he was a lovely man, delightful with a rich sense of humour, and a profound self awareness, strong, single-minded, tough and a warm and a loyal friend over the years.
 
We shall not see his like again for many a long year and I mourn his passing.'
 
Geoff Westland was a Londoner. Many London Hospitals were relocated to great country houses outside London during the war to escape the bombing and he was born in Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire on 27th August 1940. He followed his father into the Metropolitan Police in the late 1950s pounding the beat in early 60s London. He rowed for the Met's own club on the River Lea where he achieved some racing success - eventually rowing at Henley in 1965.
 
He left the police in the mid 60's and moved to Munich in Germany for a few years where he drove cement lorries and sold encyclopedias before returning to London where he began driving a truck running antiques between London, France, and Germany. He learned the languages and the rudiments of dealing. He met 'Le Chineur' the late Bernard Steinitz in Paris in the early 70's and Steinitz subsequently asked him to manage his London based showroom along with Patrick Pilkington. Steinitz was probably one of Europe's most celebrated dealers in decorative and architectural antiques - whose style and taste for the spectacular Geoff admired, and in later life emulated. At the four day Steinitz sale in Paris in 1993 Steinitz fondly remembered Geoff from this time but had no idea of his then prowess as a major London dealer - and Geoff was too self-effacing to put him right.
 
In 1977 Geoff Westland and Adrian Amos of LASSCO had moved their companies into the former St. Michael's and All Angels Church in Shoreditch which they bought in the late 70s and which forms a group with the Clergy House and the School House on Leonard Street. When the antiques world hit a dip Geoff expanded into freight transport. His company was based at St Michael's but he retained his antiques operation in Frankfurt for a while longer.
 
In 1986 when the smart money was moving into exporting antiques to Germany, Geoff restructured the company and concentrated on Antiques. In 1990 he formed Westland Pilkington with Patrick Pilkington, a fellow dealer long since retired and decamped to Ireland. In 1992 Geoff re-registered the company under the name of Westland (Antiques) Ltd trading as Westland & Co and later changed this to its current trading name Westland London.
 
In a 1992 feature about Westland & Co in SalvoNEWS [SN9] I asked him about his business philosophy. He said that he did not pitch out at trade shows, although he joined in with Salvo trade stands at London shows and one in Washington. He advertised strongly to create the right sort of profile and consolidated Westland's reputation for being a place worth visiting for the serious buyer in London. The church started to become a tourist shopping destination, partly as a result of its joint promotion with the London Architectural Salvage & Supply Company - now LASSCO - which at that stage shared half its sales space. There was undoubtedly more than a frisson of competition between the two neighbouring businesses which I believe spurred both on in their commercial successes.
 
Foreign buyers seemed to be attracted to his more outlandish stocks. In 1992 Westland sold stock to Mexicans to decorate a nightclub and to the Hard Rock Cafe in Santa Barbara, two magnificent walnut panelled rooms to Italy and Japan, shop fittings to Ralph Lauren, and a barber's shop interior to a new restaurant. At that time Will Fisher, now of Jamb, was working for him as a buyer. Around half of Westland's sales were exports.
 
Westland & Co was rigorous on checking provenance with the Art Loss Register and Salvo Theft Alerts, and the business became an early Salvo Code member.
 
Geoff Westland seemed an unlikely adopter of technology but even in 1992 the company faxed stock details to a list of pet designers, and it was the first architectural salvage dealership to create its own online stock system in the late 1990s, initially designed and run by Salvo which resulted in some of the earliest direct USA sales to newly connected professionals - such as a Georgian marble chimneypiece to a wealthy New York solicitor.
 
In 2007 Westlands took over the whole of St Michael's after Lassco left to consolidate itself in Bermondsey, Vauxhall and Oxfordshire. The Westland London website was rightly effusive of what had by then become a fabulous emporium, exuding a hallowed, but understated, atmosphere of architectural salvage:
 
Far Pavilions . . . after thirty years of shared occupation in this vaulted and cloistered English Heritage Grade I Listed location, Westlands has continued to evolve and extend its display into the whole interior so that that there are now sixteen large galleries showing a very comprehensive selection of antique chimneypieces, fire grates, furniture, lighting, architectural elements and ornamentation of all kinds, on two levels and in the courtyard.
 
This extraordinary environment of interconnecting galleries of ever changing intimate settings and panoramic vistas, abundantly stocked, unfolding before visitors, takes your breath away.
 
The variety and 'splendidity' of the venue, to quote Woody Allen, is fascinating, informative and inviting, providing a tranquilly pleasing, wandering, browsing experience approaching that of a compact museum. Flanked to the south by Mark Square in the bustling sophisticated south Shoreditch triangle on the fringe of the City of London financial district, well complimented with fine restaurants, art galleries and hotels, you will find Westland London tucked away on Leonard Street 'at the sign of the Ascot Racecourse Clock Face'.
 
From an early age Geoff had longed to travel and was never happier than when he 'was on the road'. He pursued this love throughout his life riding his Norton motorcycle across America in the 70's and later walking and hitch hiking down the entire West Coast into Mexico. Cycling too was one of his great loves and over the years he rode everywhere in the UK and Europe. Some of the longer journeys took him from London to Italy; to Greece and Crete and through the Sinai Peninsula in Israel (now Egypt). His struggle with cancer did not stop his cycling and in early summer 2012 he once more cycled up Highgate Hill for breakfast in one of his favourite cafes.

The company was Geoff's life into which he poured all his energies. He created a stimulating work environment and always encouraged his staff to go further, learn more and experiment.
Geoff himself never had children but the staff became his family and they felt the same towards him. He was very entertaining, could and frequently did conjure up magical moments at the drop of a hat and many times told enthralling tales of his travels and adventures.

Above all he had great zest, energy and enthusiasm for life. Days were never dull in his company. Typical of him and one of Maggie's abiding memories is of listening to him and his friends in the 60s, in The Prince of Wales pub in Highgate, reciting in character and word for word whole tracts from the radio programme The Goon Show to the great amusement of all.
 
He was very modest and did not consider that what he had achieved in his life and his business was at all remarkable.
 
The funeral will be held at 12.30pm on Monday 8th April 2013 at the City of London Cemetery, Aldersbrook Road, Manor Park, London E12 5DQ. The funeral cortege will start at 11.00am from Westland London, St Michael's Church on Mark Street. If you require transport to and from the cemetery please let Westlands know. After the service everyone is invited back to Westland London at St Michael's Church on Leonard Street for a gathering in Geoff's memory.

If you would like to send flowers please send them to Westlands preferably before 10am on Monday 8th April or Saturday 6th April before 4pm. They will then be arranged in Geoff's Hearse to be taken to the cemetery and then returned to Westland's to be displayed there. Flowers to Westland London, St Michael's Church, Leonard Street, London EC2A 4QX. Tel: 0207 739 8094
 
If you would like to make a donation in Geoff's memory please send it to St Joseph's Hospice, Mare Street, Hackney, London E8 4SA. Tel: 020 8525 6000. Or use the online link below
 
Memento mori