| Description
| Hamilton Council Punch Bowl, made in Canton in late 1700's for Hamilton Town Council. The Punch Bowl was presented to Hamilton Burgh Council by Thomas Wakefield, a captain in the East India Company who hailed from Hamilton, and commissioned by him as a token of gratitude for having been made a Burgess of the town in 1779.
The bowl has belonged to the Council since the original gift and was probably kept at the old Hamilton Tolbooth and then the Town House at the top cross in Hamilton.
Extract from town council minutes 17 August 1782-
"Captain Wakefield who was admitted a Burgess in Hamilton about three years ago having in gratitude for the honour conferred on him by the town made a present to the meeting of a large china bowl having the town of Hamilton's... thereon of considerable value".
Hamilton Museum label for this item reads:
"The bowl, which has a capacity of five gallons, was regularly used at large functions of the Council until it was presented by them to the Museum in 1975; still packed in the same straw lined case in which it had been brought by sailing ship two hundred years earlier." |
