Dwerrihouse & Carter, London an 18ct gold open face pocket w...

Estimate

£3,000 - £4,000

Dwerrihouse & Carter, London an 18ct gold open face pocket watch, formerly the property of Charles Drummond being a gift from the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel following the assassination of his brother Edward Drummond the gold dial with raised gold Roman numerals, decorative engraved centre and blued-steel moon hands, the chain-fusee movement having a pierced and engraved balance cock to the lever escapement with diamond end-stone, and engraved to the backplate Dwerrihouse & Carter, Berkeley Square, London, 11026, the case hallamarked for 18ct gold, London 1817, and stamped with the initials of the case maker T.H, possibly Thomas Harper or Thomas Hayter, diameter 42mm, gross weight 93.73gs. Notes Paul Dwerrihouse was a clockmaker and watchmaker and a known member of the Devil Tavern Group, given honorary freedom in the Clockmakers' Company in 1781. The Dwerrihouse company continued after John's death in 1805 with partnerships between his successors being Dwerrihouse & Carter 1800-1827, Dwerrihouse, Carter & Son 1811-1819, Dwerrihouse, Carter & Co. 1823-1827, Dwerrihouse, Ogston & Bell 1828-1835, Dwerrihouse, Ogston & Co. 1828-1842 and Dwerrihouse & Bell 1828-1875. Reference Loomes, B. Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World, N.A.G. Press, London 2006. Britten, F.J. Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers, Bloomsbury Books, London 1986. By descent the Drummond family as loaned to the Innerpeffray Library, Crieff in 1999. Drummond was a member of the family who owned and ran Drummonds Bank, and a great-grandson of William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan who died fighting for the Jacobite cause at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Drummond joined the civil service in June 1814, becoming a clerk at the Treasury. He was later Private Secretary to a succession of British Prime Ministers: George Canning, Lord Goderich, the 1st Duke of Wellington, and Robert Peel. On the afternoon of 20 January 1843, Drummond was walking along Whitehall on his way back to Downing Street from visiting his brother at the bank in Charing Cross when Daniel McNaughton, a Scottish woodturner, approached him from behind, drew a pistol and fired at point-blank range into his back. McNaughton was overpowered by a police constable before he could fire a second pistol. It is generally thought, although the evidence is not conclusive, that McNaughton was under the impression that he had shot Prime Minister Robert Peel. At first it was thought that Drummond's wound was not serious. He managed to walk back to his house, the bullet was removed and the first newspaper reports were optimistic: ''The ball has been extracted. No vital part is injured, and [surgeons] Mr Guthrie and Mr Bransby Cooper have every reason to believe that Mr. Drummond is doing very well.'' However, complications set in and Drummond died five days later, aged 50. Reference: Bolitho, H. and Peel, D. The Drummonds of Charing Cross, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1967. J. A. Hamilton, Drummond, Edward (1792-1843), rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004