Click on
Thumbnails
below

Description — clicking on underlined text brings up extra full size images of each piece

Stock number

A George III pint mug (13.5 Troy Ounces) made in London in 1761 by Fuller White. It is engraved with an inscription commemorating a shooting match at Egham on 20th March 1871 by R C D Tichborne and crested for Tichborne. The Sir Roger Tichborne who won this mug is now better known as 'The Tichborne Claimant', or alternatively Thomas Castro or Arthur Orton. Accompanying this mug are two objects that demonstrate the importance the case had for the British public at the time. The first is a special 21 page supplement about the fraud case surrounding the Tichborne Claimant published by the Graphic in 1874.

Price: £3,500.00

In 1854 Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne (b. 1829), heir to the extensive estates and a baronetcy, was onboard the Bella when it sailed from Rio De Janeiro to Jamaica on 20th April. On the 24th of April a capsized ship's boat from the Bella was discovered off the Brazilian coast with no human occupants. The Tichborne family were informed of the near certainty of Roger's death but they retained a faint hope that any survivors might have been picked up by another ship and taken to Australia.

Following the loss of her husband in 1862 Roger's mother, retaining hope of her son's survival, continued to advertise for news of Roger's whereabouts or news of him and in 1865 she received some. It was reported that he had been found in Wagga Wagga living as a butcher under the name of Thomas Castro. In 1866, following the death of her younger son, Lady Tichborne supplied funds to help her long lost son to England (from this time he was often referred to as the Tichborne Claimant). While in Sydney he raised further funds and provided a partial explanation for the missing years of his life (including being kicked by a horse in Tasmania). At this time he met two family retainers- one of whom believed his claim and the other who did not. In September of that year the claimant sailed from Sydney to London, with his wife and children, in First Class and reached England in December.

By the time of his arrival the claimant had gained weight (when Roger had been last seen, and photographed, he had been slim and blonde haired and he was now very stout and dark haired). His first action on reaching London, after an attempt to visit the townhouse of Lady Tichborne (then in Paris), was to visit a house formerly occupied by the Orton family in Wapping.

When they did meet, Lady Tichborne accepted the Claimant as her son and granted him a generous allowance but this ceased on her death in 1868. This left the Claimant without her protection and facing the skepticism of the rest of the family. A public subscription was raised to support him but by January 1871 he was facing bankruptcy proceedings. On 11th May 1871 the case of Tichborne vs. Lushington came to court. Ostensibly this was a legal ruse to evict the tenant of Tichborne Hall, Colonel Lushington, from the estate. However, in reality it was a way of legally proving the identity of the claimant as Sir Roger Tichborne. This case concluded on 4th March 1872 with the jury rejecting the Claimant's suit and he was arrested for perjury and committed to Newgate prison.

Although he remained in prison the Claimant remained a popular figure. His trial for perjury was styled Regina vs. Castro, as this was the last name he had legitimately used. However from the evidence of the first trial many now believed him to be Arthur Orton, the son of the family in Wapping whose house he had visited on his return. The trial began on 21st April 1873 and ended on 28th February 1874, including 188 days in court and 215 witnesses from Australia, South America, France and Wapping were called. It was also the first time photographic evidence were used as evidence in a British Court. The jury retired for 30 minutes before declaring the Claimant guilty and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison (in addition to this one of the witnesses was later sentenced to 7 years for perjury and the Claimant's lawyer was expelled from Gray's Inn, lost his status as a Queen's Council and struck off).

On the Claimant's release in 1884 he emerged, still claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, and went to New York where became a bartender. In 1887 he returned to London where he went on to the Music Hall stage and entered a bigamous marriage with another performer. In 1895 he issued a full confession that he was in fact Arthur Orton but he immediately retracted this (although he did not return the money he had received for the publishing rights to it). Using the money he established himself as a tobacconist in Islington. When he died in 1898 he was buried in a pauper's grave in Paddington in the presence of 5,000 people. The plate on his coffin read- Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne. There was no legal way the family could prevent it.

The life and trials of Arthur Orton/Thomas Castro/The Tichborne Claimant/Sir Roger Tichborne became one of the Cause Celebres of the 19th century and of national interest. The newspaper supplement attests to this. It brought ideas of identity to the fore and they can be seen to be central to many Victorian novels (including the Woman in White, No Name and Armidale by Wilkie Collins), Josephine Tey used the case as the inspiration for her novel Brat Farrer (published in 1949) as did Ruth Rendell in the Strawberry Tree (published in 1990) and in 2023 Zadie Smiths' The Fraud depicts the events of the trial directly.

A Victorian child's mug with beaded borders and engraved body, by Martin, Hall and Company Sheffield 1862 engraved {Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1876} .
Price:

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), is now arguably best known now for his creation of the ecclesiastical detective Father Brown. However Chesterton was also an important and prolific writer of poetry and theological texts and both a literary and an art critic. After studying at the Slade School of Art in London Chesterton worked for a number of publishers before writing a weekly column in the Daily News (from 1902) and the Illustrated London News (from 1905). From 1932 until his death Chesterton also delivered 40 talks a year for the BBC. A large man Chesterton was the model for John Dickson Carr's detective Gideon Fell and when asked during World War I why he was not "out at the front" he replied "If you go round to the side, you will see that I am".

A George III mug (holding 3/4 of a pint and weighing just over 11 Troy ounces) with cast borders, a dolphin handle and two applied figural groups (one holding a torch) supporting an engraved cartouche made in London in 1804 by John Emes, initialled {H}.

Price: £795.00

A George V mug (weighing 7 Troy Ounces) decorated with daffodils assayed in Sheffield in 1915 by Cooper Brothers.

Price: £450.00

A George V beaker (250 ml) by Munsey and Company of Cambridge London 1912 (also struck with the retailers mark on the base), inscribed "To Mrs. J. R. Tanner from her husband's former pupils MCMXII [1912]" beneath the arms of St. John's College, Cambridge.
Price: £445.00

Joseph Robson Tanner (1860-1931) was educated at Mill Hill School before going up to St. John's College Cambridge in 1879. He was to spend the rest of his academic life in Cambridge, indeed at St. John's. He got a First in the History Tripos in 1882 and was admitted a member of the Inner Temple in London. However Tanner clearly saw his life as in Cambridge— 1883 saw him elected President of the Cambridge Union and gain a Lectureship and Fellowship at his old college. He served as an Assistant Tutor from 1895 to 1900, a Tutor and Tutorial Bursar from 1900 to 1912 and 1921 respectively. From 1926-1927 Tanner was Deputy to the Regius Professor of Modern History.

In addition to his many University posts Tanner also lectured on Indian history to Indian Civil Service recruits (1885-1893) and was a prominent expert on Samuel Pepys- publishing many books on Pepys and also on the wider naval context. In 1888 Tanner married Charlotte Maria Larkman (d. 1946) and the couple lived in Aldeburgh (Suffolk) during their retirement.

This beaker was a gift to Mrs. Tanner on her husband's leaving the post of Tutor at St. John's College.

A small Victorian silver goblet (12 cm high) with a beaded foot made in London in 1871 probably by William Edwards . The front is engraved with the arms of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and the reverse with an inscription relating to the winning boat in the Scratch Fours college boat race of 1872.

Price: £225.00

Emmanuel College, Cambridge was founded in 1584 on the site of a former Dominican priory.  It was the model for Harvard, founded by former Emmanuel student John Harvard, and the first non-clergyman to be Master (from 1895 to 1911) was William Chawner, a member of the well known goldsmithing family.  Emmanuel admitted female students in 1979.

The students who formed the successful rowing crew referred to on this cup are an interesting group:

Lawrence Walter Richings was admitted to the college in 1871 and graduated with his B.A. in 1875.  He claimed his M.A. in 1910 but in the interim had had a successful ecclesiastical career.  He was ordained as a Deacon in 1876, a Priest in 1877 and held several livings.  He was also Rural Dean of Weobley from 1922 to 1925.  He died in 1932.

Roger Buston was admitted to the College in 1870 and graduated with his B.A. in 1874.  He claimed his M.A. in 1877.  He became a teacher at Hurstleigh Preparatory School in Tunbridge Wells (1874-1875) and Aldin House, Slough (1876-1878).  In 1878 he returned to Hurstleigh Preparatory School, this time as Headmaster, and remained there until his retirement in 1904.  He died in 1919.

William French was admitted to the College in 1868.  He graduated with his B.A. in 1872 (claiming his M.A. in 1887).  He had already been ordained as a Deacon in 1872, as a Priest in 1874 and a Naval Instructor and Chaplain from 1875 to 1884. During his naval career French served on several ships- including H.M.S. Juno (in China) and H.M.S. Cleopatra (in the Pacific).  He died in 1888.

Henry Cecil Philipps was admitted to the College in 1871 and graduated with his B.A. in 1879.  By 1877 he was a member of Lincoln’s Inn but later joined the Army and rose to the rank of Captain in the 9th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in 1888.  He died in 1910.

Frederick (Edward) Heycock was admitted to the College in 1869 and graduated with his B.A. after the unusually long period of 7 years (in 1876).  After this it is simply reported that he “went to Australia” and died at Rockhampton in Queensland in 1929 with his will being probated at £325.  If little is known of him then the opposite is true of his younger brother Charles Thomas (d. 1931).  He was a prominent metallurgist, Goldsmiths’ Reader in Metallurgy at Cambridge (1908-1929), winner of the prestigious Davy medal (1920), and Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1922.