A Victorian gold mounted agate presentation table snuff box of canted rectangular form with panel

A Victorian gold mounted agate presentation table snuff box of canted rectangular form with panels of agate forming hinged lid and base, the concave sides with reeded borders and chased foliate designs within C scroll panels, with scalloped thumb piece 7cm x 5.5cm x 2.5cm Notes: The lid rim with engraved presentation border 'PRESENTED BY COLONEL DUGLAD CAMPBELL R.A. TO ARTHUR CAMPBELL WRITER TO THE SIGNET 1848' The Presenter of the snuff box Dugald Campbell was born in Campbeltown, Argyllshire, on 3rd February 1781. He was the eldest son of Duncan Campbell (born c.1755) and his wife Anne (born c.1759). His parents both came from the town and had married in Campbeltown on 23rd February 1780. Dugald Campbell was baptized in Campbeltown on 13th February 1781. He enrolled as a gentleman cadet at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich at the age of 14 on 14th July 1795, Campbell was subsequently commissioned 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, at the age of 15 years and 10 months, on 6th December 1796. Promoted 1st lieutenant on 16th July 1799, he spent the period from July 1800 to May 1802 in Spain, Malta, Egypt and Italy. He served at Ferrol, in Spain, in 1800 and in Egypt in 1801, taking part in the actions there on 8th, 13th and 21st March during which he was wounded and for which service the Sultan of Turkey awarded him the small gold medal of the Imperial Ottoman Order of the Crescent. Promoted 2nd captain on 29th July 1804, he returned to the Mediterranean in May 1805 to serve in that theatre of operations until August 1812. He fought at the Battle of Maida in Calabria, southern Italy, on 4th July 1806 and then again in Egypt in 1807, where he participated in the bombardment of Rosetta. He was present on the expedition to Diamente in Calabria in 1808 and at the capture of the islands of Ischia and Procida in the Bay of Naples in 1809. He was promoted captain on 3rd August 1810. In April 1813 Campbell was posted to Jamaica where he remained until August 1815 and during which posting he probably met his future wife, Anne Mary Bernard, the widowed daughter of David Kerr of that island. In 1814, at the apparent ending of twenty years of war with France, he was rewarded for his services by being included in a general brevet promotion to the rank of major: this took place on 4th June that year. On 30th January 1816 he married Anne Mary Kerr, or Bernard, in Edinburgh. His final overseas postings were to the garrison of Gibraltar, where he was posted from July 1824 to May 1828 and from February 1829 to July 1832. Campbell was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 17th June 1828 and retired on full pay on 4th June 1836, being promoted to the rank of colonel on 23rd November 1841. On the institution of the Military General Service Medal 1793-1814 in 1848 Campbell was awarded this campaign medal with the single clasp for the battle of Maida. Had he survived a further year, he would have been awarded an additional clasp for the campaign in Egypt in 1801 but he died in Edinburgh on 14th July 1849. Since his marriage was childless, his estate, apart from a few specific bequests, reverted to his widow, who died in Edinburgh in 1855. Among the specific bequests in Colonel Campbell's Will were three snuff boxes which were bequeathed to three of the four trustees of his Will, his three brothers-in-law, Herbert Newton Jarrett Kerr (d. 1875), William Mitchell Kerr (d. 1862) and Donald Macmillan, who was married to Campbell's sister Anne. The fourth trustee of the Will was Arthur Campbell WS, who had prepared it in 1844 and who was also bequeathed 'the four oil paintings which at present hang in our dining room'. The recipient of the snuff box, Arthur Campbell was born on 15th July 1788, the 4th son of Arthur Campbell of Auchmannoch, Ayrshire (d. 1828) by his wife Burella Hunter, the second daughter of Robert Hunter, professor of Greek at Edinburgh University. Campbell was admitted to the Register of Writers to the Signet on 23rd November 1813 and apprenticed to John Hunter, who may have been a kinsman. On 31st August 1825, Arthur Campbell married Jane Barstow, the daughter of Thomas Barstow of Kelso and elder sister of the distinguished Edinburgh accountant Charles Murray Barstow (1804-85). Campbell purchased the 481-acre estate of Nether Catrine, Ayshire, in 1852, was a director of the British Linen Bank for more than thirty years and was also a Justice of the Peace for Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 3rd March 1875. His son, Arthur (1827-84) and grandson, George (b. 1862) were also Writers to the Signet. The three snuffboxes specifically bequeathed in the Will of Colonel Dugald Campbell may be of relevance. The text of the Will in this regard reads as follows: "We request Mr Herbert N.J. Kerr's acceptance of the Mosaic Snuff Box which was given to Colonel Campbell by Mr Jarrett. Also we leave to Mr Donald Macmillan the Pebble Snuff Box mounted in silver which formerly belonged to the Macdonalds of Sanda…. We request Mr William M. Kerr's acceptance of Colonel Campbell's Silver Snuff Box left him by David Kerr his father." Although it is clear that the gold-mounted agate snuff box that is the subject of this report was not among those bequeathed in Colonel Campbell's Will, it is implicit that the bequeathing or giving of snuff boxes was an action of some significance and particularly in the case of snuff boxes with some historic importance for both giver and receiver. '…the Pebble Snuff Box mounted in silver which formerly belonged to the Macdonalds of Sanda…', for example, may commemorate the massacre of the Macdonalds of Sanda following the capture of the Castle of Dunaverty in Kintyre by troops loyal to the Campbell Duke of Argyll in 1647: it may even have been an item of booty removed from Dunaverty by a Campbell ancestor of Colonel Dugald Campbell. Since Arthur Campbell WS was Colonel Campbell's legal advisor and man of business, and of course also a distant kinsman, it seems most likely that Note: The box was a gift from the Colonel in the year prior to his death, to his legal advisor for some service rendered and also, perhaps, in order that all the Trustees of theColonel's Will should each have an appropriate snuff box by which to remember him. Stephen Wood MA FSA,