The inside of the lid is engraved with the inscription: The Gift of / Ellen Turner / to / Thomas Grimsditch Esqr / as a token of gratitude / for having by his / Promptitude, Zeal, and Ability / rescued her from a Conspiracy / Unexampled for Atrocity / in the / Annals of History. While the inscription may evoke the fevered world of the Gothic novel, it relates to an event that actually took place in 1826. Fifteen-yearold Ellen Turner, the daughter of a wealthy Macclesfield silk merchant, was persuaded by Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796–1862), assisted by his brother William, to elope to Gretna Green where her marriage to him would supposedly save her father from bankruptcy. The Wakefields’ scheme was discovered, and although the couple escaped to Calais they were overtaken by Ellen’s uncle and Thomas Grimsditch, the family lawyer. The marriage was annulled by a special Act of Parliament and the two brothers were tried and sentenced to three years in Newgate prison. Miss Turner returned to her family ‘a pure and spotless virgin’ and later married Thomas Legh of Lyme Park, one of the magistrates involved in the trial. She died in childbirth in 1831. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, after his time in prison, became a politician and a prominent figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand, as well as being involved with interests in Canada. Remarkably, the Turner elopement was not the first perpetrated by Westminster School-educated Wakefield. In 1816 he had eloped with another heiress, Eliza Pattle; their union, however, was not opposed by her family, who accompanied the young couple to Genoa and then back to London, where Eliza died after the birth of her second child in 1820. The maker’s mark, four letters in a shieldshaped punch, is unidentified. Interestingly, the form and decoration of the box closely resemble another in a private collection that is struck with the maker’s mark of Charles Colins Söhne. Both boxes are inset with plaques chased with the same subject, a skirmish between Turks and Austrians, most probably inspired by the paintings of Georg Philipp Rugendas (1666–1742). While there are very minor differences of detail, these plaques were evidently produced by the same master, working in the manner of the Kirstenstein family of Strasbourg. The firm of Thomas Hawley & Co. was active in London between 1760 and 1862. 

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