Lot 278
A late Victorian 15ct gold presentation key
Auction: 13 February 2008 at 11:00 GMT
Description
by Robert Scott, Glasgow 1897-1898, the shaped terminal with scroll border, the obverse engraved with the town crest of Airdrie and clan Wilson, the reverse with presentation inscription, the reeded shaft with acanthus collars, and contained in original fitted case
Dimensions
13.3cm long, 67.3g
Footnote
Notes:
The presentation inscription reads:
"Presented to John Wilson ESQ. of Ardrie M.P. on the occasion of his opening The Public Park being the Diamond Jubilee Year of the Reign of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria 19th Novr. 1897"
John Wilson was born at Airdrie in 1844, and was educated at Airdrie and Glasgow Academies. His business undertaking was one of the largest of the kind in Britain, and employed over three thousand persons; his mineral and residential estates in Lanarkshire, Fife, Perthshire, and Kinross extend to some eight thousand acres; and he had seats at Airdrie House, Airdrie, and Kippen House, Dunning.
His estates near Lochgelly in Fife alone employed some 1,200 miners, and brought to the surface some 1,500 tons of coal per day. One of his pits was at the time the deepest in Scotland, descending over 2,280 feet.
He was chosen in 1894 to represent Kelvinside Ward on Glasgow Town Council, and was elected M.P. for the Falkirk Burghs as a Liberal Unionist in 1895. He left the Unionist Party in 1903, when it departed from the recognized doctrines of Free Trade, but he retained his seat till the General Election of 1906.
He retired then from the Falkirk Burghs, as there was already a Liberal candidate in the field and though unanimously adopted as candidate for the Wick Burghs he did not go to the poll. After the General Election his services were recognised by the King conferring upon him the dignity of a baronetcy, in July, 1906.
He married, first, in 1878, Margaret B. M. Robertson, and secondly, in 1889, Emma Alexandria Binnie, and had a family of three sons and two daughters.