Set of 18 Silver Dinner Plates with Earl of Mansfield Armorial, London 1844

This is a superb set of early Victorian silver dinner plates complete with original coat-of-arms and motto engraved to the border.

There are eighteen of these circular plates which is ideal for a larger dining table and gives versatility for many diners or for use as serving platters, although we would sell just twelve if requested. The plates have a traditional gadroon mount and bear the arms of the 4th Earl of Mansfield. The armorial is superbly engraved with two supporting lion rampants, surmounted by an earl's coronet and above the Latin motto "Uni Aequus Virtuti" which translates to "Nothing Less Than Excellence"..

The plates are in very good antique condition with typical knife scratchings from 170-years of use, plus a few minor dings to the surface.

The arms are those of Murray quartering Barclay of Balvaird within the motto of the Order of the Thistle (an order of chivalry associated with Scotland), and the same accolade with Ellison quartering another, for William David Murray, 4th Earl of Mansfield K.T. (1806-1898) and his wife Louisa (d. 1837) daughter of Cuthbert Ellison, whom he married in 1829.

William Murray was a Tory politician who served as a Lord of the Treasury from 1834 to 1835 during the first term of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. He succeeded his father in 1840 to the Earldom of Mansfield (1792 creation), and grandmother, Louisa Murray, 2nd Countess of Mansfield, in 1843 as Earl of Mansfield (1776 creation). Following the death of his grandmother, he inherited the family seat at Scone Palace in Scotland and was appointed a Knight of the Thistle (of which he became senior knight) and it is likely that this set of dinner plates were commissioned to celebrate these events. 

See Wikipedia for further information - William Murray, 4th Earl of Mansfield