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#DarwinFinches #JohnGould #HMSBeagle #AntiqueAuction #BritishBespokeAuctions #SudeleyCastle #TELawrence #TitanicSilver #VictorianCompass #OttomanTughra #AuctionHighlights #EvolutionHistory #RareAntiques #CheltenhamAuction #SilverAndStories
British Bespoke Auctions’ autumn sale at Sudeley Castle (4 November) featured three notable lots with strong historical provenances.
The headline item was a small Victorian gilt brass pocket compass (lot 98), which hammered at £17,000 against an estimate of £400–500. Its lid is engraved “Mr Gould, from C. Darwin Esq.,” linking it to ornithologist John Gould (1804–1881), who famously identified the birds Charles Darwin collected on the HMS Beagle as a new group of ground finches—12 species later known as Darwin’s finches. Gould, the Zoological Society of London’s first curator and preserver from 1827, began as a taxidermist who prepared specimens for George IV, including the King’s giraffe in 1829. He later wrote the birds volume of Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle (1838–42), with plates by his wife Elizabeth. The compass, measuring about 30mm with a white enamel dial, had remained in the Gould family for generations and was sold alongside a larger Victorian brass compass, a family tree of the Gould/Edelsten/Sutton line, and a eulogy by direct descendant Anthony Edelsten MD.
Also strong was a set of Middle Eastern silver tableware (lot 66), which sold for £22,000 over an estimate of £8,000–10,000. The family states the pieces were given by T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) to Dr Gerald Rickett, who served as both his doctor and a close friend. Rickett was medical officer at Sherborne School from 1911 to 1948 and, during the First World War, served with the Dorset Yeomanry at Gallipoli before commanding No. 88 General Hospital in Cairo. The family recalls Lawrence as a frequent visitor to Rickett’s Sherborne home, Hill House. The set comprises a 66cm tray with plates and bowls, one bearing the tughra (calligraphic monogram) of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II.
A silver cigarette case (lot 63), Birmingham 1905 and monogrammed GH, realized £5,700 against an estimate of £2,000–3,000. It was recovered from the body of George Herbert Hinckley, a second-class bath steward on the Titanic from Mickleover, Derbyshire, who had previously served on the Teutonic, Adriatic, and Olympic. Body No. 66 was picked up by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett, and Hinckley was buried at sea on 22 April 1912; his effects were listed as a silver watch and chain, keys, letters, and a matchbox marked “G.H.”
The sale was covered by Georgina Wroe, deputy editor of Antique Collecting, who is also a journalist, author, and broadcaster with experience at national newspapers, magazines, and BBC Radio Suffolk, and whose debut novel Slaphead won a WH Smith Fresh Talent Award.
