An 18ct gold freedom box, Edmond Johnson, Dublin, 1847, retailed by West & Son

Probably in the collection of George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (1800-1870);

By descent in the collection of the Earls of Clarendon.

The lid of the box is engraved with the arms of George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (1800 – 1870), and the underside with the arms of Trinity College Dublin. Villiers was born in London, the first surviving child of George Villiers (1759-1827), Member of Parliament for Warwick 1792-1802. After graduating from St John’s College, Cambridge, he followed his father into politics, first gaining experience as attaché to the British embassy in Saint Petersburg and after three years returned to England as a commissioner of customs. In 1833 he became minister at the court of Spain and while there succeeded his uncle John Villiers in the earldom in 1838 after which he returned to England and married.¹ In 1847 he reluctantly took up the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when much of the country was suffering from the Great Famine and political agitation was increasing over repealing the Act of Union. Villiers had spent two years in Dublin from 1827-28 arranging the fusion of the English and Irish Boards of Excise, and his success on that occasion qualified him, in the eyes of some British politicians, to take on the unenviable role.

Villiers had only been in Dublin a few months before the degradation of law and order prompted him to write to the then Prime Minister John Russell asking for permission to declare martial law and suspend habeas corpus. In 1848 he wrote: ‘No Tipperary landlord ever received more threatening notices than I do, or more warning as to when and how I am to be assassinated. I can’t say these disturb me at all; but, as Dublin is full of the greatest ruffians on earth, I am obliged to observe a certain amount of precaution, and I only go out in the carriage for a short walk in the Park…I have little or no assistance from anybody and the life I lead is hardly endurable.’²

In January and February 1848 revolutions broke out in Italy and France and there was great disquiet at Dublin that this would ignite the political tinderbox in Ireland. On 14 March 1848 the ‘Doctors, Masters and other Members’ of the University sent an address to the Earl of Clarendon lending him their support should he need it: ‘That we have full confidence in your Excellency’s wisdom, and in the firmness of her Majesty’s government in suppressing insurrection and outrage; and we hereby declare our readiness to render all the aid in our power to the authorities in the preservation of public peace and order.’³ The address was displayed at the porter’s lodge of Trinity College and received the signatures of nearly 2000 graduates and undergraduates before the heads and students of the University processed to Dublin Castle to present it to Villiers. Villiers wrote a response, which was carried back to the University, and read to the gathering crowd of students who greeted it with ‘peals of enthusiasm’ according to one newspaper report. The same report continues that the address and its reply represent ‘the opinions, principles and intents of the upper and middle classes of society in Ireland’, and it gives an idea of their relief and gratitude to Villiers for his role in maintaining law and order in Dublin. While it is possible that it was this occasion which prompted the College to present Villiers with the gold box, it could simply have been a gift on his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Other Irish gold boxes with the College’s arms and those of Lord Lieutenants to have appeared at auction include:

• Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, appointed in 1730 (Sotheby’s, London, 18 May, 1967, lot 91)
• William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, appointed in 1794 (Sotheby’s, New York, 16 May 1996, lot 327)
• Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot, appointed in 1817 (Christie’s, London, 8 December 2011, lot 129)
• Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, appointed in 1828 (Bonhams, London, New Bond St, 1 April 2015, lot 152)
• John William, 4th Earl of Bessborough, appointed in 1846 (Sotheby’s, New York, 5 October 1999, lot 443)

Notes

Encyclopædia Britannica; Vol. 6 (11th ed.); 1911 Cambridge University Press; pp. 434–435.

Maxwell, H.; The Life and Letters of George William Frederick, Fourth Earl of Clarendon, K.G., G.C.B.; 1913, London. 3. Dublin Evening Mail, Wed 15 March 1848, p.2