A large Victorian sterling silver ‘blackjack’ jug or ewer, London 1876 by Francis Boone Thomas

Modelled after the 17^th century leather original. The handle and foot rim with stimulated stitch. The front engraved with a crest of a lion rampant guardant, supporting a shield, thereon a thistle slipped. Satinised surface. Fully marked underneath and stamped THOMAS 155 NEW BOND STREET, with Royal warrants.

Height – 30 cm / 11.9 inches

Weight – 1300 grams / 41.8 ozt

The crest is for Dalgety

For Frederick Gonnerman Dalgety (1817 - 1894)

Son of Alexander Dalgety (1788 - 1853) and Elizabeth Dorige (abt. 1790 - abt. 1843). He arrived at Sydney on 2^nd June 1834 on the "Dryade" and became a clerk in T. C. Breillat & Co and trained to become a merchant.

In December 1842 he moved to Melbourne as manager of a new firm which he rapidly made his own and by 1848 was an independent and well-to-do merchant, concentrating on 'the settlers' trade', providing merchandise for the squatters and buying their produce. He visited England in 1849 to strengthen his facilities for credit and the disposal of colonial produce and returned to Victoria in 1851. In the gold rush Dalgety continued with general business, enlarged his pastoral trade, sold merchandise to the diggers and bought much gold from them; in 1851-55 he made about £150,000 from his gold speculations alone. In 1854 he moved to London to establish the headquarters of a metropolitan-colonial enterprise dealing mainly with the Victorian pastoral industry. He took with him as London partner Frederick Du Croz, and left C. Ibbotson as a colonial manager-partner in Geelong; he returned to Victoria in 1857 to establish James Blackwood as another manager-partner in Melbourne. These four men between them were mainly responsible for the expansion and success of the Dalgety business; until 1884 only one other partner, E. T. Doxat, was added to the London firm. Dalgety lived in England after 1859, making one last trip to Australia and New Zealand in 1881. By 1884 Dalgety had firms in London, Melbourne, Geelong, Launceston, Dunedin (opened in 1859), Christchurch (1860) and Sydney (1878), with ten partners and a combined capital of £900,000, of which Dalgety held £300,000 and his original partners £350,000. On 29th April 1884 the firms were incorporated into a joint-stock company, Dalgety & Co., in which Dalgety continued in active management as largest shareholder and chairman of directors until his death.

In 1868-73 he had built Lockerley Hall, a mansion and estate worth £238,000. He held various civic offices in Hampshire and was high sheriff in 1877; he was also by purchase lord of the manors and patron of the livings of East Tytherley and Lockerley.

In 1871 he was nominated as joint executor of his aunty Eliza Simmonds estate. He was living at Oaklands in Southampton. He died there on 20^th March 1894, survived by five daughters and five sons, none of whom went into the business. He left at least seven stations in New Zealand valued at £160,000 and personal estate valued at more than £479,900. Except for an abortive Kimberley speculation, his private property in Australia had been sold profitably in the 1880s. He married Blanche Elizabeth Trosse Allen in Kingsbridge, Devon, England in 1855. He passed away on the 20^th March 1894 at the age of 76 and was buried in East Tytherley, Hampshire, England.