A George III silver tankard by Philip Rundell, London 1819, ...

Estimate

£3,000 - £5,000

A George III silver tankard by Philip Rundell, London 1819, with fine cast handle and band of oak leaves and acorns, 'Presented to Lieutenant Matthew Curling Friend by the directors of The Harbour of Ramsgate as a testimony of their respect and for the great science display by Him in laying down a Meridian line in the clock house on the Pier of Ramsgate,' 1025g (32.9ozs), 19.5cm high Provenance; Matthew Curling Friend (1792-1871), was born on 21 January 1792. Friend entered the navy in July 1806 as a first-class volunteer, and served on various ships on the African coast, in the West Indies, off Boulogne and Cherbourg, and in the East Indian and China waters. The following June he was appointed to the Bucephalus which escorted Napoleon to St Helena. After the Napoleonic wars he turned to scientific interests, and in 1817 constructed a meridian line in the Clock House of Ramsgate harbour. On 16 March 1820, certified as 'a gentleman of great acquirements, particularly in nautical and practical astronomy' he was elected F.R.S. In 1822 he entered Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge; in 1827 he received the gold medal of the Medico-Botanical Society of London, and later, a diploma from the Royal Statistical Society of France. Ramsgate played a pivotal role in the Napoleonic Wars. The naval harbour and garrisons on both cliffs changed the town from a small fashionable watering hole to a place of some military and social consequence in Regency society. Ramsgate Royal Harbour comprising: the East Pier built under William Ockenden and Captain Robert Brooke of Margate, was started as a harbour of refuge in 1750, an advanced pier was added 1788-92 under John Smeaton, which it allowed it to become a major embarkation port during the Napoleonic wars. From 1803 to 1807, East Cliff Lodge was the headquarters of Admiral Keith, commanding the North Sea and Channel Fleets. Between 1804 and 1816, over 300 transports came to Ramsgate Harbour to embark more than 50,000 men, horses and materials to the continent. The largest troop movement occurred in 1809, when the disastrous Walcheren Expedition attempted to secure the Dutch island and the port of Flushing. In 1816 the steamboat service from London to Margate arrived instead of spending a day in a bumpy coach to Brighton, wealthy seaside visitors could now cruise down the Thames to Thanet in just four hours of comfort and luxury. So the best of society chose to enjoy a month or two's relaxation from ''the cares and anxieties of Metropolitan life'' in Ramsgate. There is very little documentation relating to why a second median line was required although, Greenwich and the pool of London must have been a very busy place during the Napoleaonic Wars, it may have been considered that Ramsgate would make a more suitable location for English Fleet to be base.