Belize (British Honduras) interest – London 1842 by Edward Farrell
A Victorian sterling silver sugar bowl

Of rounded circular form with a scalloped rim raised upon three acanthus capped scroll feet with cast and chased fruiting leafy junction. The body with embossed decoration of gourds, flowers and fruiting vines, heightened with flat chased and mattes decoration. The rim with flat chased decoration of roses, foliate C scroll and rocaille. One side with an oval cartouche within a chased rocaille surround, engraved with a crest of a dexter arm in armour fesseways, holding in the hand a cross crosslet fitchée in pale, encircled in the motto per mare, per terras. Gilt interior. Fully marked underneath.

Diameter – 14.6 cm / 5.75 inches

Weight – 258 grams / 8.29 ozt

The crest and motto are for MacDonald

For Alexander Macdonald (1786-1856), Superintendent of British Honduras for the first time 1829-30, and a second time 1837-43. Probably the Lt General Alexander MacDonald, born on the Isle of Scalpay, Parish of Strath, Isle of Skye, to Normand MacDonald (1742-1823) and his wife Susannah McAlister (1754-1820), he married on the 9 October 1830 Susan Fox Strangways (d.1863), the daughter of Rev. Hon. Charles Redlynch Fox-Strangway (1761-1836) and Jane Haines (d. 1830), he the son of Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester (1704-1776).

MacDonald was evidently a forceful character, having coming under scrutiny for his piratical capturing on the Honduran Bay island of Roatan in 1830, performing the same again in 1838 establishing British Military protection until the devolution in 1859.

“Lord Elgin, governor of Jamaica, to Lord Stanley, Kingston, July 6, 1843, F.O. 15 (36), 230-237. When Superintendent Alexander McDonald of Belize had, at the request of the Mosquito king, appointed a commission in 1840 to administer the internal affairs of the Shore, Lord Russell had, on February 8, 1841, ordered him to disavow it: F.O. 15 (28), 182-186. During a visit to the Shore in August, 1841, on board HMS Tweed, McDonald again had intervened directly in Mosquito affairs, not only by forcibly ejecting the Nicaraguan commandant from San Juan, but by encouraging the Mosquito king to appoint a new commission naming McDonald, Patrick Walker, William Walsh, and Mathew Newport, all of Belize, to assist in administering the Shore during both the king's lifetime and the minority of his heir. McDonald was reprimanded by Sir Charles Metcalfe, governor of Jamaica, in a letter dated October 29, 1841,F.O. 15 (28), 174-175.” Naylor, R.A. (1960). The British Role in Central America Prior to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 40(3), p.361.

Until 1862, the territory was under the vice-regency of the Governor of Jamaica, and administered by a Superintendent.

Also in this sale a teapot of 1843 engraved with this crest and motto, additionally the coat of arms of British Honduras (Belize).