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Hallmarked London 1842-43, by J.
E. Terrey & Co.. Each are of campana form with a bold, cast, foliate rim,
removable liner and inner rim. The sides are engraved with the Arms of the
Island of Barbados and those of Samuel Maxwell Hinds. The handles are modelled
as upturned clamshells and further decorated panels are indicative of coffee,
cotton, tropical fruit, sugar, hogsheads of rum and other motifs associated
with Barbados. The sides are also engraved with a presentation inscription,
"Presented to The Honorable Samuel Hinds, Speaker, By The House of Assembly of
Barbados. As a mark of his virtues in private life & a tribute of his
conduct as Speaker, during a period of difficulty unprecedented in the history
of Colonial Legislation, when by his amiable deportment conciliatory
disposition and suavity of manners he so skilfully conducted the arduous duties
of his office, as to gain for the house the respect of The British Government
and for Himself the Confidence and approbation of His Country. August 1839".
The whole standing on four dolphin feet and with a shaped base.
Height: 35cm; width across handles:
35cm; Weight: 360oz..With a steel-bound, oak, twin handled casket with fitted
interior, 58cm wide.
Samuel Maxwell Hinds was born in the
parish of St Michael, Barbados, on 12th May 1795 and baptised in that parish on
30th June 1795. He was the eldest son of Benjamin Hinds and Ann Maxwell, both
of the parish of St Michael, who had married in that parish on 1st July 1794.
He was named after his grandfather, Samuel. The Hinds family had been among the
earliest English settlers on Barbados and, by the mid-18th century, had become
substantial and widespread landowners, with properties in the parishes of St
Peter, St Michael and St Lucy. The family sent three successive generations, of
which Samuel Maxwell Hinds was the last, to represent the parish of St Peter in
the Barbados House of Assembly between 1773 and 1839. Samuel's father, Benjamin
- who was one of the two representatives for St Peter between 1795 and his
death in 1807 - was Honorary Treasurer for the island 1805-07 and Chief Justice
in the Court of Common Pleas for the parish of St Peter. Samuel was sent to
England to be educated and entered Charterhouse School in July 1803; his
brother, Thomas Maxwell Hinds (1799-1838) joined him there in 1807. He attended
Charterhouse until August 1812, one of his close friends at the school, Henry
Havelock (later Major General Sir Henry Havelock, Bart. KCB [1795-1857]),
remembering him thus: "Hinds, a man of taste and a poet, spent his early years
in travelling, married in France, distinguished himself in one of the colonial
assemblies of his native island, Barbadoes, at the period of slave emancipation
and died in Bath about 1847": Marshman, J.C. "Memoirs of Major General Sir
Henry Havelock KCB" (London, 1860, p.6). Details of Samuel's travels are not
known but his marriage, to Louise Victorine Ste. Rose Durand, took place in the
chapel of the British Embassy in Paris on 16th September 1820. Samuel and his
wife may have returned to Barbados by the following year since there is a
suggestion that he was acting Governor of the island in 1821, between the
governorship of Lieutenant-General Lord Combermere (1773-1865) and that of
Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Warde KCB (1766-1834): this reference may, though,
refer to one of his numerous Barbadian namesakes and kinsmen. In 1823 Samuel
was elected one of the two representatives for the parish of St Peter in the
Barbados House of Assembly and continued to represent the parish until 1839,
being elected Speaker for the session of 1836-37 and remaining as Speaker for
the next two annual sessions of the House, in 1837-38 and 1838-39. In 1839,
Samuel and his wife left Barbados to settle in England. Samuel Maxwell Hinds
died in Bath on 19th May 1847, a week after his 52nd birthday. His widow
subsequently commissioned a window in the chapel of All Saints, parish of St
Peter, Barbados, in memory of her late husband, the inscription reading: "To
the memory of Samuel Maxwell Hinds, sometime Speaker of the House of Assembly
of this Island. This window is erected by his widow". The Arms of Samuel Hinds,
as engraved upon the wine coolers, are recorded in Barbados in 1820, as: Gules,
a chevron Or between three stags trippant; crest, out of a coronet, a wyvern;
motto, VIGILO ET SPERO.
Sold as lot 492 by Lyon &
Turnbull, Edinburgh, Scotland,
8th December 2004.
Reproduced by courtesy
of Lyon & Turnbull, auctioneers.
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