There's gold in them there Yorkshire hills, says Yorkshire gold panning champion

“I thought there is no way we are going to find gold there – the odds were 1000 to one, but I went down the day before to check it out and in the first pan there it was, Yorkshire gold. Who would have thought there was gold in the North York Moors?” But before you start a gold rush Mark is quick to point out that the amount of gold there is quite small and before you start gold panning you firstly need the permission of the landowner among other things.

“People have been prosecuted for gold panning without the landowner’s permission,” he adds.

Mark is owner and founder of Wetherby ethical jewellers Jacqueline and Edward – named after his wife who runs the business with him and his late father who ignited his obsession with gold.

“I was about seven and on holiday with my dad up in Highlands of Scotland looking at castles and monestries. We saw this classic old timer, with a Stetson and a big bushy beard and he was panning for gold. My dad pulled over the camper van and we ended up spending two weeks there. It was a real Wild West moment. My dad got gold fever pretty badly after that and I’d go with him.

"I remember clearly when I found my first piece of gold – it is a feeling that’s very hard to describe, but it never leaves you. When you find your first piece of gold its magic which is why we take people up to Scotland to pan for gold for their own wedding rings.”It was the start of Mark’s love affair with gold.

“Almost my entire childhood was spent walking up and down rivers gold panning across the UK – I think I was one of the youngest gold panners and we'd spend all our time looking for gold.” Mark has gone on to compete and is part of the British gold panning team.

“I never even knew it was a thing when we met,” says Jacqueline. “When he said he was National gold panning champion I thought he was having me on."

It is no accident that Mark went on to study Geology at the University of Leeds to further expand his knowledge of the yellow stuff. “It was a natural progression really.”

But it was there that Mark’s eyes were opened to a darker side of the mineral mining business –the often devastating impact on the environment.

He spent the next 17 years working to clean contaminated land caused by mining which instilled him an overwhelming desire to do his bit to be as ethical and sustainable as possible. As well as being a geologist and goldsmith, he is a chartered environmentalist, chartered scientist and is also chartered with the Institute of Water and Environmental Management.

It was actually Jacqueline who was the catalyst for the jewellery business.

“I was trying to think of something different for a Christmas present one year,” says Jacqueline who was a musical theatre West End actress and singing teacher.

"I knew he had a passion for gold and was really very artistic so I bought him a jewellery making course. I thought he’d just laugh at me but he loved it and did it for two years.

"We knew we want to do an ethical business together and had just had our first child and were a bit bored in the evenings as we are doers but couldn’t really go anywhere and so we started making wedding rings in the garage of their Wetherby home.

"We couldn’t be more different as people but we really complement each other from both a relationship and business point of view. Mark is very much and ideas man and artistic and I am a doer – I can get stuff done. We are equally determined and equally bordering on obsessed with this business – we live it.”

For a few years the pair juggling their growing jewellery business alongside their days jobs but they were struggling to fit it in and in October 2019 they decided to take the plunge, give up their jobs to concentrate on their business full-time.

“The timing couldn’t have been much worse really,” says Jacqueline. Just months after going fully self-employed Covid struck and all weddings were cancelled.

“We thought ‘What have we done’. People were asking for refunds and we had no income,” says Mark. “We had no Government support – we fell through the net.”

“It was a really scary time but we knew we had a good business and if we could just survive the pandemic then we would be bullet proof, as there would be rush of people wanting to get married, but it was a very worrying time – that and home schooling two children,” adds Jacqueline. “We decided we had to try to turn it to our advantage.” Lockdown also allowed them to work on areas such as their website, developing an at home ring sizing service and designing other things such as engagement rings.

At one point Mark even emptied out all the Hoover bags from the garage floor, panned it and sent it off to be purified which resulted in 3.5oz of pure gold – enough to catch up with the backlog of work as they waited for the first life saving order to come it.

When the predicted rush happened they were ready to go. They now employ nine staff and have moved out of the converted garage to a unit in a small business development in Wetherby. They made 1,000 wedding rings last year

But Mark knows that the premises don’t reflect his sustainable ethos.

"We really wants to do a sustainable self build which fit in with our ethical and sustainable ethos," he says. As well as only using gold from ethical or recycled sources, Mark is also conscious about the gems they use in their rings. He steers clear of large diamond mines, instead using recycled diamonds from a trusted dealer. He also uses laboratory-grown diamonds and has been working with a UK company. They are grown as a cube over six weeks by cleaving the carbon off methane in a hydrogen atmosphere, then faceted and certified. This is becoming an important new way of producing ethical diamonds.

When they started our Jacqueline and Edward were very much on their own when it came to ethical jewellery but as more customers become concerned about the provience of the metals used in their jewellery more people are setting up.

“There are an increasingly number of people out their claiming to be ethical, sustainable and handmade – but what is ethical and sustainable? There is a lot of green washing out there –businesses planting a tree to off set their carbon footprint but not being truly sustainable.

We are completely transparent on our website and ethics are at the heart of everything we do.”

As they look to the future as well as a move to a sustainable workshop and studio, Mark has plans to open a workshop in New York.