Length: 9.8cm (3.8in)
Silver. Badge of office for Comptroller and Lady Patroness of the Anglesey Hunt for 1858, in the form of a hunting horn decorated with a hound ‘en Courant’, and inscribed ‘1859 / Captain / Thomas Lewis Hampton / of Henllys / Comptroller // Miss Maria / Emma Elizabeth Griffiths / of Carreglwydd / Lady Patroness.’ Maker’s mark of George Cowie. Hallmarked 18
Colonel Thomas Lewis Hampton-Lewis of Henllys and Bodior (1834-1929) was educated at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 5th Dragoon Guards. He served in the the Crimean War, and was present at the Charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balacklava. He was also present at the Battle of Inkermann, and during the Seige and Fall of Sebastopol, (Order of the Medjidie and the Turkish Medal). He came home to his 21st birthday celebrations at the Bulkeley Hotel in Beaumaris; and retired from the Army with the rank of Captain. He married Lettice Martha Rayner from Trescawen Hall and they had 6 children. In later lrfe he was a member of Her Majesty's Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Honorary Colonel of the Royal Anglesey Engineer Militia.
Maria Emma Elizabeth Conway Griffiths inherited Carreglwyd estate on Anglesey and in 1880 married Sir Chandos Stanhope Hoskyns Reade, 8th Baronet, of Shipton, Oxford. They had no children and Sir Chandos died in 1890.
The Anglesey Hunt boasts the title of being the oldest in Britain. Its earliest minute book dates back to 1757 and serves as proof of its seniority over the Tarporley Hunt Club, which was established in 1762.