Liz Jones has written to ask for information and photos about the steam yacht Lady Nell, which was built 1884 for Lord Shrewsbury, as she has a gavel inscribed with the yacht’s name. If you have information you’d like to share, please email me at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll pass on the message.
Here’s what she says:
‘As you can see, the gavel is wooden, and is about 30cm long.
‘Lady Nell was sold to the Uruguayan Navy in about 1890 – her new owners fitted her with guns. She then becamse a training ship, then the headquarters of a local rowing club, then a heap of wood in the mud of a tributary of the main river in Uruguay in 1950, so she had a long life.
‘This link includes some information, although Google translates it quite amusingly. The letters ‘ST’ are for ‘Shrewsbury Talbot’ – Talbot is the Shrewsbury family name.
‘Lord Shrewsbury (great grandfather of the present earl) use to run hansom cabs in London, which also had ST painted on them. But that doesn’t explain why a gavel…
And now I think I’d better clean it up.’
I Googled about a bit and found a website that had this to say:
‘Ceremonial gavels (right) are presented to recognize a person or commemorate an event. These typically have an inscription attached to the gavel on a metal band, or lettered in paint directly in the wood. As collectibles, they are worth more if the recipient was a famous person or if they commemorate a significant historical event.’