The arms are those of Elphinstone with a martlet for difference for Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779 - 1859). He was born in 1779 as the fourth son of John, 11th Baron Elphinstone. He became a member of the Bengal Civil Service, arriving in India in 1796. In 1802 Elphinstone went to Poona as the assistant to the governor-general's agent and soon distinguished himself in two battles. Conspicuous military and diplomatic services ensured his rapid advancement and in 1808 Elphinstone obtained the important position of Ambassador to the Afghan Court of Kabul. In 1819 he went to Bombay to take up the governorship and prepared the code of law which subsisted for forty years. The foundations of the public education system were laid by him. He was probably presented with the candelabra and the other components of the dinner serice on his return to England in 1829. He declined a baronetcy and any further offices, instead devoting himself to writing his well-known 'History of India'. He died in 1859, a statue being erected in St. Paul's Cathedral in memory of him, one of the founders of the Anglo-Indian Empire.

The inspiration for the base and stem derives from an ancient Roman candelabra as engraved by G.B. Piransi (1720 - 1778) and published in England in 1811 in H. Moser's A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, Paterae, Tripods Candelabra, Sarcophagi etc. A1820 gilt pair engraved with the arms of Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Bt. (1798 - 1855) and illustrated by Timothy Schroeder, The Gilbert Collection of Gold and Silver, 1998, p. 421, was sold Christie's, London, 5 July 2004, lot 4. An earlier pair of this model made for the 3rd Lord Foley (1780 - 1833) in 1816 are in the Gilbert Collection, London. W. Ezelle Jones notes in his exhibition catalogue, Monumental Silver, Selections from the Gilbert Collection, 1977, no. 32, that "the form and the applied acanthus decoration of the triangular bases are holdovers from earlier designs...as are the cycad forms from which the baluster stems rise. The delicately modulated silhouette of the slender shafts is Adamesque in inspiration although the intricate surface embellishment is Storr's Regency style used in small scale."

A pair of 1829 John Bridge tureens and covers engraved with identical arms were sold Koller Auctions, Zurich, 14 September 2015.