A Fascinating Silver Gilt Trophy Bought with Part of the 400 Guineas Presented to Captain George Welstead by the East India Company Directors in 1805

A Fascinating Silver Gilt Trophy Bought with Part of the 400 Guineas Presented to Captain George Welstead by the East India Company Directors in 1805

Provenance

Christie’s 17^th  of March 1999, lot 91

The collection of Carl De Santis

Sold at Sotheby’s 4^th of November 2011, lot 253

This fascinating documentary piece, made by the unidentified maker “WH” in London, 1795, is engraved with the Welstead family crest (a hind trippant) and an inscription stating ‘A remembrance of the East India Company’s Present, to Captn G. Welstead, of four hundred guineas. June 11, 1805’.

This is not a presentation inscription. The wording makes clear that Welstead was presented with money and not the piece of plate itself. He must have chosen to buy this piece with some of his prize to remember his success in the future. This also explains why the piece itself, probably bought second hand, predates the inscription by 10 years and is in the late Adam style and not the fashionable and much heavier looking proto-regency style of the period. The elegant lines of this neoclassical urn clearly appealed to Welstead and it certainly looks wonderful as is.

Sadly the precise reason for the award of 400 Guineas to Welstead in 1805 is not recorded in the surviving newspapers. Welstead was at this point captain of the East Indiaman Euphrates and it is recorded in Shipbuilding & Shipping Record: A Journal of Shipbuilding, Marine Engineering, Dock, Harbours & Shipping, Vol. 68, pp. 134 & 162 that Lloyds of London presented him with a “silver tureen” for successfully refloating the vessel when she had run aground in the Hooghli river. It is quite likely the HEIC rewarded him for this same event.

As discussed below, Welstead received several gifts of silver during the course of his incredibly successful career, including having a bespoke presentation centrepiece commissioned for him through a subscription by the grateful officers on his ship c.1825. The present trophy is further evidence of the important role that Welstead played in British trade in this period.

A portrait of George Welstead was on the art market some years ago and is reproduced below.

The Career of George Welstead

Welstead was born in 1771 and seems to have lived for most of his life in Wormley in Hertfordshire. He was captain of the General Harris for many years and a log book relating to the ship and its voyages was sold at Christie’s in the past (whereabouts currently unknown).

Welstead appears to have captained the same ship from 1815-1828, a relatively unusual occurrence during this period when captains were frequently moved to different vessels.

Fascinatingly, it has been possible to find an advert placed in the Government Gazette in India on the 21^st of June 1821 which relates in extraordinary detail the cargo of Welstead’s ship at this point. It was nothing less than a floating department store, bringing beers, wines, all sorts of food, watches, cutlery, musical instruments and even guns for purchase on its return trip to London. The full text of this fascinating document is available upon request.

Another fascinating example of Welstead’s varied career is referenced in the Lowe Papers in the British Library. Apparently there is a reference to Welstead visiting St Helena on the 29^th of November 1820 and some screens, presumably of lacquer, were purchased from Welstead for the use of Napoleon-then in exile on the island. According to the papers, Napoleon was “well pleased” and thought them “remarkable handsome”.

Also in the collection of the India Office in the British Library are a series of journals kept by Welstead whilst aboard the General Harris. Thanks to exhaustive research conducted by Jim Markland of the the Cheltenham Local History Society, it has been possible to access detailed descriptions of three of the ship’s voyages under Welstead’s command. These voyages demonstrate how dangerous international travel was at this time.

On a voyage to China and Penang in 1819, the ship was struck by lightning which caused a catastrophic fire and led to the death of 5 men and horrific injuries to another. There was also widespread sickness on board which made the voyage home extremely perilous due to reduced crew numbers.

The second voyage investigated by Mr Markland took place in 1821. On this occasion there was an outbreak of cholera when the vessel reached Madras. The ship was then struck by a typhoon in the Malacca Straits which, to quote Mr Markland, reduced it to “bare poles”. After essential repairs before the return journey, the ship returned to England after an absence of two years in 1823.

Most intriguingly of all, Mr Markland has also studied the 1824 voyage. An exceptional design drawing for a truly extraordinary chinoiserie silver centrepiece, made by the firm of Green, Ward & Co-rivals to Rundell Bridge and Rundell at the very height of the London market, survives in a private collection and was possibly the piece of plate presented to Welstead after this voyage. This voyage was apparently plagued by gales, a tornado and a collision but, interestingly, there is also a mention of ill-discipline on board.

An intriguing reference is made in an article in the London Morning Herald, 30th of July 1825, which carries a long article detailing Welstead’s court case against a group of fellow part-owners of his ship the General Harris relating to profit shares he felt he was owed. The case was settled out of court but what is crucial is the penultimate paragraph of the article:

“We understand that the plaintiff (Welstead) was chiefly instrumental in settling the difference which subsisted some time back, between the Chinese Government and the agents of the East India Company, and that as a mark of his services on that important occasion, he was presented with a valuable piece of plate”

Perhaps it was Welstead’s ability to suppress the indiscipline and return the ship home safely that led to the silver tribute being commissioned by his grateful fellow officers in the entire HEIC China fleet as, according to the inscription on the piece.