Matthew Barton Ltd.
Lot 313
AN ARTS AND CRAFTS SILVER ROSE BOWL, THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND'S CRIPPLES' GUILD LTD., BIRMINGHAM, 1913 the planished bowl boldly chased with ribbon-tied fruit garlands, the flared cylindrical stem engraved presentation inscriptions, the domed foot further chased with fruit sprays, underside with stamped D.S.C.G. below a ducal coronet trademark 31cm diameter, 1363gr (43oz) The inscription reads: 'Presented to the 4th Battalion Kings Own, Royal Lancaster Regiment, by Myles Kennedy, 1913.' Further inscribed with various presentation dates and details (1913 to 1949, not all consecutive). Myles Burton Kennedy (1862-1928) was a Furness ironmaster, proprietor of Roanhead mines and chairman of the North Lonsdale Iron & Steel Company, commander of the aforementioned territorial force, the 4th Battalion Kings Own. The Duchess of Sutherland's charitable guild originated in 1898 as The Potteries and Newcastle Cripples Guild, whose aims were to provide medical treatment, holidays and a trade to disabled children in the area. In 1907 the guild became a limited company, trading as The Duchess of Sutherland's Cripples Guild of Handicrafts. Workshops were built adjacent to the dairy house at the Sutherland's Trentham Park in Staffordshire. Under the auspices of the artist and metalworker Francis Arthur Edwardes (1865-1944) the boys of the atelier made hand wrought copper (often silvered) and some silver, sold from a London showroom in 13-14 New Bond Street. During the war the previously highly successful workshop apparently turned to making detonator caps; changing post-war fashions, the economic climate and perhaps the absence of its guiding light (the Duchess now living in France), led to its closure in 1922. Millicent, the Duchess of Sutherland (née Lady Millicent Fanny St. Clair-Erskine, 1867-1955), had been a great society hostess (Queen Victoria is said to have remarked to an earlier Duchess, on arriving at Stafford House, the Sutherland's residence in London, |I have come from my House to your Palace|). Associated with the 'Marlborough House Set' and painted by Sargent in 1904, she had earned nevertheless the soubriquet 'Meddlesome Millie' from the local pottery owners for her campaign to stop the dangerous use of lead in Staffordshire glazes. As well as her work at the guild, she wrote a number of novels and memoirs. Following the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 she established an ambulance unit that became trapped behind enemy lines; she escaped and by 1915 had returned to Northern France to establish tented field hospitals. Widowed in 1913, post-war she underwent two short and unsuccessful subsequent marriages, living the rest of her life in France. (http://trenthamwarmemorial.org.uk/gallery/millicent%20final.pdf, accessed 30 March 2021)
