MARK OF R. & S. GARRARD, LONDON, 1841

In 1833, when the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Bill intended to eradicate slavery throughout the British Empire, a fund was established to distribute £15 million, later expanded to £20 million, to slaveowners, mainly in or connected with the West Indies, as compensation for the act of emancipation. Managing this fund was the Slave Compensation Commission, composed of three non-salaried members, and three salaried members, one of whom was James Lewis III, who was most likely born in Jamaica in 1778. The Commission continued arbitrating slaveowners' claims for nine years, eventually processing 45,000 claims connected to 800,000 enslaved people. This ewer, bearing Lewis’ family arms, was presented to him at a meeting in the West India Committee Room, Bishopsgate Street, on 17 April, 1839 by a group of former slave-owning planters and merchants, in recognition of the 'impartial justice, accurate judgment & surpassing zeal, diligence and ability, applied by him to the arduous and intricate task' of his Commissioner role. Per Lewis' will, it passed to his second son, George, upon his death in 1847.