29cm x15.2cm x 11.2cm
Silver. Of plain rectangular form, the hinged lid engraved with the regimental badge under a Queen Victoria crown, and inscribed Presented to / Lieutenant W. Anstruther Thompson / Royal Horse Guards / By His Brother Officers on His Marriage / Jan 28 1881 / Lt Col Lord Kilmarnock, J.F. Brockenhurst, Major E.G.H. Atherley, Hon. L.F.G. Byng, Capt. C.W. Selwyn, Lord Binning, Sir John Willoughby, Bt., C. Combe, V.J.F. Ferguson, / Capt. Spicer, J. Burns, Lord Skelmersdale, O.G. St G. Williams, Lieut. H.T. Fenwick, A.V.H. Vaughn-Lee, G.C. Wilson, C.H. Villiers, W.F. Ricardo, / Lieut. A.E. Burnaby, G.J. FitzGerald, C.C.B. Weld Forester, 2nd Lieut Viscount Sudeley,
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Sir C.H. Rushout, Bt., R.M. R. Weir, Q.M. W. Drake, Sur.Maj. Melladew / Sur. Forrester. V. Sur. Matthews.’ Cedar lined with compartmental dividers, the lid with gilt interior. Maker’s mark of William Thomas Wright and Frederick Davies, 370 Oxford Street, London / Hallmarked London 1890.
Lieutenant-Colonel William Anstruther-Gray, F.S.A., J.P., D.L. (1859 –1938) was the son of Colonel John Anstruther-Thomson of Charleton, Colinsburgh, Fife, and Maria Hamilton Gray of Carntyne, Glasgow. He was educated at Eton and adopted name of Gray on succeeding to the Carntyne estate in 1904. He joined the Militia's Fife Artillery as a Sub-Lieutenant (Supernumerary) on 16 December 1876. He served for four years until he joined the 13th Hussars in 1880, and served in India and Afghanistan in 1880-1881 before transferring to the Royal Horse Guards in 1885. He was Aide-de-Camp to the Earl of Kintore, Governor of South Australia, from 1889-1891. He served in South Africa from 1901-1902 where he was commandant of the district of Knysna in 1901, and Inspector of Concentration Camps in Transvaal in 1902. He later commanded 3rd Scottish Horse during the First World War. He was unsuccessful Unionist candidate for St Andrews Burghs in 1903, and represented that constituency from 1906 - January 1910 and from December 1910-1918.