Irish Coins & Historical Medals

Kildare Farming Society, 1813, a silver award medal by W.S. Mossop, farm animals and plough, house and trees in background, rev. wreath, named (Class the 3d, To Colley Grattan Esq, For the Best Crop of Transplanted Carrots in the Co. Kildare, Decr. 2d. 1813), edge impressed (Mullen Maker 68 Dame St. Dublin), 50mm (D & W 140/300; Gilbert 5). Old scratch in centre of reverse and has been cleaned in the past, otherwise very fine and extremely rare; with clip and small ring for suspension £300-£400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Irish Historical Medals, the Property of a Gentleman.

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Provenance: Baldwin FPL 1999 (36); J. Spencer Collection, DNW Aujction M5, 17 December 2007, lot 1172.

Colley Grattan, related by marriage to the Duke of Wellington, was an attorney at Edenberry, Queen’s co. On giving up his profession he retired to Clayton Hall, near Castle Carberry, co Wicklow, a property inherited through his mother. The property was attacked several times by rebels who were fought off by Grattan and his servants, but in 1798 the insurgents succeeded in burning it to the ground and the family removed to Athy, co Kildare. His son, Thomas Colley Grattan (1792-1864), author of Highways and Byeways and other popular novels, was for some time the British consul at Boston, Massachusetts