New Zealand Coins

Lot 1510    Session 6 (9:30am Wednesday)    New Zealand Coins

Estimate $500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $440

PRESENTATION TANKARD FOR SAVING LIFE, 1852, from H.M.S.Fantome's Master (Ship's Navigation Officer) Charles James Polkinghorne R.N. to New Zealand colonist Levi Tandy, a one pint Georgian baluster form tankard/mug (135mm high), with later silver plating and with impressed hallmarkings, with scroll handle, the body engraved with decorative flowers and leaves pattern and in the centre of this is a clear area inscribed, 'Presented by/C.J.Polkinghorne to Mr. Tandy,/in grateful remembrance of his saving/the lives of H.Jacobs and himself/H.M.S.Fantome/Novr. 14th/1852'. Fine and historically significant.

Charles James Polkinghorne was born in 1822 and received his appointment in the Royal Navy in 1842, He was 2nd Master on HMS Calliope during the early New Zealand Wars during which period that ship served as the main prison ship and upon which the Paramount Maori Chief Te Rauparaha was incarcerated. He was also a very early British Naval veteran of the China Opium Wars. Polkinghorne served in the Royal Navy for 36 years with 16 of those years at sea. He finished his career as Staff Commander at Portsmouth where he died in April 1889.

The HMS Fantome was built in 1839 and was put into service as an anti-slavery patrol ship off East Africa before being sent to the First New Zealand Wars and thence to Australia. It was while on a Royal Mail delivery run from here to Wellington, New Zealand in November 1852 that a distress call was received when they arrived ashore with the mail at Porirua harbour that a local colonist needed medical attention. The Captain decided to take the ship's surgeon to render aid and left Polkinghorne to take command of the vessel. The Captain and surgeon Lieutenant William Henry Bent along with eight crewmen set off for shore, unfortunately, as they got closer heavy waves overturned the ship's boat and all were thrown out. The surgeon and four crewmen drowned. The bad weather continued unabated and consequently Polkinghorne was unaware that anything had gone wrong.

After no word for two days, Polkinghorne decided to go ashore and see what was happening. He set off in a whale boat with four crewmen for Porirua harbour however this boat also was overturned in the rough surf. Two of the crewmen were drowned and a third was saved by one of the crew from the Captain's boat who was on shore and saw the accident. Mr Polkinghorne and the other clung to the overturned boat but it was drifting away and they would have inevitably been lost. Fortunately for them, Levi Tandy, a local landowner with a couple of cattle runs in the area, was informed of the accident and immediately put off in a small dinghy and at considerable risk succeeded in saving them.

On 24 June 1841 Levi Tandy, gardener, aged 26 along with his wife, Mary Ann Tandy aged 27, and Matilda Tandy aged 17, listed as a servant, arrived at Port Nicholson as steerage passengers aboard the Barque Catherine Stewart Forbes. He went on to become a farmer/landholder, and store keeper in Wellington. He died in August 1873.

With large amount of research.