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A Fine Ormolu-Mounted Officer's Sword Presented To Captain George Silvertop By The Bywell Yeomanry In 1818By Prosser, Maker To The Prince Regent, No. 9 Charing Cross, London
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Find your local specialistA Fine Ormolu-Mounted Officer's Sword Presented To Captain George Silvertop By The Bywell Yeomanry In 1818
By Prosser, Maker To The Prince Regent, No. 9 Charing Cross, London
By Prosser, Maker To The Prince Regent, No. 9 Charing Cross, London
82 cm. blade
Footnotes
The presentation inscription reads: 'This Sword Presented As A Testimony Of Respect And Esteem By The Bywell Yeomanry Cavalry To Captain Silvertop Their Late Commander 1818.'
George Silvertop was born in 1775 at Benwell House near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. In 1801 he inherited the estate of Ministeracres from his father and at the onset of the Napoleonic Wars he was appointed Captain Commandant of the Derwent Rangers. Disbanded in 1801, he was appointed Captain Commandant of the Bywell Yeomanry Cavalry when war resumed in 1803. It was on the disbandment of this troop that he was presented with the sword offered here which was valued at one hundred guineas
In 1814 he travelled abroad and was granted an interview with Napoleon on Elba, later publishing an account of the meeting. On his return to England, having gained a reputation as a man of high character and ability, he was selected by the Cabinet under Lord Liverpool as the medium of private communication between Britain and the See of Rome on matters affecting the conditions of British Roman Catholics. As a member of a prominent Catholic family he played his part in campaigning for Catholic emancipation and was the first Catholic to be appointed a High Sheriff (of Northumberland) since the reign of William III. He was offered a seat in Parliament but refused although he served as a magistrate and Poor Law Guardian. He died on 20 February 1849
Offered with Frank Dobson, The Life and Times of George Silvertop of Ministeracres, 2004
For more information regarding John 1 Prosser see Leslie Southwick, London Silver-hilted Swords ..., 2001, pp. 199-200; and for a sword by the same maker with a similar hilt see Leslie Southwick, The Price Guide to Antique Edged Weapons, 1982, p. 116, fig. 304








