Hanoverian pattern, three pronged, each engraved with coat-of-arms with earl's coronet above, marked on stems
7 in. (17.8 cm.) long

28 oz. 3 dwt. (877 gr.)
The arms are those of Booth, for George Booth, 2nd Earl of Warrington (1675-1758), of Dunham Massey, Cheshire.

George Booth, 2nd Earl of Warrington (1675-1758), of Dunham Massey, Cheshire, by descent to his daughter,
Lady Mary Booth (1704-1772), wife of Harry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford (1715-1768), by descent to their son,
George Harry Grey, 5th Earl of Stamford (1737-1819) and his wife Lady Henrietta Bentinck (1727-1837) and by descent to,
Catherine, Lady Grey (1860-1925) of Enville Hall, her son Sir John Foley-Grey 8th Bt. (1893-1938),
Catherine, Lady Grey and Sir John Foley-Grey; Christie's, London, 20 April 1921, from lots 60 or 61.

George, 2nd Earl of Warrington, Mss. Inventory, The Particulars of my Plate and its Weights, 1754, folio 3.
J. Lomax and J. Rothwell, Country House Silver from Dunham Massey, London, 2006, p. 72, 169 and 208, n. 46.

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Lot Essay

George Booth, 2nd Earl of Warrington (1675-1758), was an important patron of the leading Huguenot silversmiths of his day, and his vast and well-documented collection provides us with a fascinating portrait not only of the 2nd Earl but also of the use of silver in a great country house of the first half of the 18th century.

On his succession in 1693, the 2nd Earl inherited his father's prodigious debts along with his title. A strategic marriage to Mary Oldbury (d.1740), the daughter of a rich London merchant, raised the family out of their financial misfortune but brought personal woes with it. The couple had a troubled marriage and only one legitimate child, Mary Booth (b.1704). The Earl named his daughter as his sole heiress. Aside from improving its park it was said that he planted over 100,000 trees. The 2nd Earl devoted himself to building a sizable silver collection.

The Warrington Plate is distinguished by its uniformly high quality, exceptionally heavy gauge, and its conservative taste. The Earl favoured the plain and heavy fashions of the early 18th century Huguenot silversmiths. His near obsession with expanding the collection at Dunham Massey is underscored by the existence of a lengthy inventory written in his own hand, titled ‘The Particulars of my Plate & its Weight.’ The seventeen-page document, dated 1750 and amended by the Earl in 1754, records over 25,000 ounces of silver. The earl acquited three dozen dessert sppons, forks and knives in 1744/5. A dozen spoons and forks were sold in the rooms from Tythrop Park, 27 April 1995, lot 92. Lomax and Rothwell, op. cit., also record a set of twelve spoons in a private English collection
which have never been sold.

The Earl's only child, Mary, married Henry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford (1715-1768) in 1736. After Warrington's death in 1758, Dunham Massey passed to them and subsequently descended in the Grey family. Although a group of the Warrington Plate was sold by their descendants at Christie's, London in two sales on 20 April 1921 and 25 February 1931, the Warrington Plate is significant because it is ‘probably the largest group of plate to have survived in the house for which it was originally made’ (J. Lomax and J. Rothwell, op. cit., London, 2006).