THE 2ND EARL OF WARRINGTON'S SILVER COLLECTION
George Booth, 2nd Earl of Warrington, was an important patron of the leading Huguenot silversmiths of his day, and his meticulously well-documented and extensive silver collection provides us with a fascinating insight into not only the taste of the 2nd Earl but also of the use of silver in a great English country house of the first half of the 18th century.

On his succeeding his father in 1693, the 2nd Earl inherited immense debts caused in part by his father's profligacy and his spending in support of William of Orange and the Protestant campaign to depose King James II. As a consequence the Earl was compelled to make a strategic but unhappy marriage to Mary Oldbury, the daughter of a rich London merchant, which brought him a dowry of some £40,000 in 1702. During nearly twenty years of extensive improvements to the parkland at Dunham Massey, it was said that he planted over 100,000 trees. The 2nd Earl also devoted himself to amassing a vast silver collection and the rebuilding of his family seat, Dunham Massey.

The Earl of Warrington's silver is distinguished by its high quality, heavy gauge, and conservative taste, as the Earl mostly favoured the plain and massive fashions of the early 18th century. His near obsession with building the silver collection at Dunham Massey is underscored by the existence of a lengthy inventory written in his own hand, titled 'The Particular of my Plate & Its Weight.' The seventeen-page document, dated 30 April 1750 and amended by the Earl in 1754, records over 25,000 ounces of silver objects, which include 16 pairs of snuffers and snuffer trays.

The Earl's only child, Mary, married the 4th Earl of Stamford in 1736, and after Warrington's death in 1758, Dunham Massey passed to them and subsequently descended in the Grey family, Earls of Stamford.

A significant portion of the Warrington plate, including the present lot, was sold by their heirs at Christie's in two sales, on 20 April 1921, and 25 February 1931, however, thanks to the tenacity of Roger Grey, 10th Earl of Stamford (1896-1976) much of the silver collection was reunited and displayed at Dunham Massey following his gift of the house and estate to the National Trust. For an exhaustive and scholarly study of Lord Warrington's plate see J. Lomax and J. Rothwell, Country House Silver from Dunham Massey, National Trust, 2006. For earlier biographical studies of Lord Warrington, see J. Hayward, 'The Earl of Warrington's Plate', Apollo, July 1978, and T. Schroder, 'George Booth and William Beckford: A Study In Patronage,' International Silver and Jewellery Fair Annual, 1989.