Spoons, flags and heroes: A newly discovered item relating to the Hiltons of Selling
Elizabeth was born in 1723, in Selling, daughter of William Chambers and Susanna (née Gibbs). Her father died the following year, leaving
A NEWLY DISCOVERED ITEM RELATING TO THE HILTONS OF SELLING
In March of last year, the following communication was received via the KAS website:
“I have a quality stlg silver spoon larger than a dessert spoon but smaller than today’s tablespoon. Engraved around the edge on the underside of the bowl is the following inscription:
Eliz Hilton Ob, 29 Aug 1787, AE, 64…
I am curious as to why it would have been so inscribed. Was it customary to inscribe spoons thus? I feel very much that I am remained in the family until 1828 when it was sold to Lord Sondes. The name Marshes seems to have disappeared from the records in later years, but it researches among the tithe records show it to have been sited at the location of the present Selling Court Farm.
Anyone familiar with Selling Church will know of the Hilton family through the Hilton Chapel, situated in the South Chancel, where memorials to the family are to be found along with two (now replica) flags from the Battle of Trafalgar.
Elizabeth and Robert are commemorated on a marble slab on the East wall of the chapel, above the altar. Their eldest surviving son, Thomas Gibbs Hilton (sadly, their first-born son, William Chambers
“We hailed the Victory to inquire the health of Lord Nelson whom we had heard was wounded at the commencement of the action when we received the melancholy information from Captain Hardy that this hero was no more.
His dying words of this warlike Admiral were ‘I have then lived long enough’. This unwelcome intelligence of his death troubled most sensibly those hearts that were but a moment previous elated with success.
The two Trafalgar flags were given to Selling Church by Hilton’s descendants in the 1930s. Being in a fragile state, they were moved in 1994, first to a conservator, then to Canterbury Cathedral Treasury, before an appeal by the National Maritime Museum raised enough money for their acquisition, conservation and the creation of replicas for the church. The Union Flag is now on display in the Museum’s Navy, Nation and Nelson Gallery, providing a the custodian of this spoon and would be so grateful if someone could give me more information.
I live in Australia. I have had this spoon since the 1960s, it being stored safely away and forgotten until now. I feel it should be in a museum.
Yours sincerely,
E.M. Colquhoun (Mrs) – age 91 years.”
Mrs Colquhoun had already done some genealogical homework and identified the dedicatee as one Elizabeth Hilton (née Chambers) born in Kent in 1723 and married to a Robert Hilton in 1746.
It is fair to say that, as a Romanist, I had no knowledge whatsoever about 18th-century mourning spoons. Research indicated that the custom of giving inscribed memorial spoons to pallbearers or other participants in a funeral was a custom originating in, or at least prevalent in, the Netherlands in the
17th and 18th centuries. The majority of the (few) examples I have found are from the United States, where Dutch settlers introduced the custom.
The earliest cited example from the US is dated 1645, and there the custom lasted into the early 19th century.
Although I have found reference to such spoons being distributed in some places in England, I have been unable to ascertain where exactly; they are uncommon here. The only example I have identified is the Strickland Death’s Head Spoon (Victoria and Albert Museum), hallmarked for 1670-71 and made for a Yorkshire family. This is a much earlier, and it is a much more elaborate example, bearing the family’s arms, a skull and the words, “Live to Die, Die to Live”. The Hilton spoon is unusual in having the inscription around the bowl, rather than on the handle, although enquiries with the Victoria and Albert Museum did furnish one Dutch example (albeit a slightly more ornate spoon) with a memorial inscription on the bowl; this correspondence confirmed that the Hilton Spoon is highly unusual as a piece of English silver.
Aside from the inscription, finely engraved in hatched capitals, the spoon, which is 21cm in length and weighs 51g, is entirely plain.
However precious a memorial it was, it has clearly been heavily used. It has some denting to the bowl and seems to have been used to scrape the contents of a container, as the end of the bowl is unevenly worn, slightly inverted and slightly sharp to the touch. Indeed, the very top of the numeral nine has been worn away. It bears London hallmarks which have almost been polished away. The date letter and maker’s mark are indecipherable, but it cannot have been assayed before 1786 (the year before Elizabeth’s death) as it bears a duty mark in an oval cartouche. Duty marks were only introduced in 1785, and for the first year, the cartouche was a chamfered rectangle.
If the spoon itself is somewhat enigmatic, what do we know of Elizabeth Hilton?
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Elizabeth Hilton’s memorial in Selling Church. It is incorrectly dated 1788 (1787, the date on the spoon, coincides with that in parish records)
Hilton died shortly after birth) is commemorated in a monument on the South wall and Elizabeth’s parents on the West wall.
Thomas Gibbs Hilton, a gentleman farmer and partner in the Faversham Commercial Bank, in turn, had seven sons. Notable among these were Stephen and Robert, both of whom served at Trafalgar. Robert was Surgeon’s 2nd Mate aboard the Swiftsure. National Archives’ Trafalgar Ancestors database records that he later deserted on 12 April 1806 at Gibraltar though this seems unlikely, as he returned to Kent, dying in Bridge, in 1837.
Just a couple of weeks after Trafalgar, on 3 Nov 1805, Robert wrote a letter home, addressed to his brother William (see below) describing the battle. This was only discovered, amongst family papers, in 2007. Having described action, including the sinking of the Redoubtable, he tells how, after the battle, the Swiftsure’s crew sought news of Nelson:
Our gallant seamen now paused to pay tribute due to the memory of so great a character.”
It was Robert’s brother Stephen who returned to Kent with the two flags. Stephen was Master’s Mate aboard the HMS Minotaur, which, with the HMS Spartiate, captured the Spanish Neptuno. Stephen must presumably have distinguished himself, for he was able to bring home not only
Pieces survive in various collections. backdrop to Nelson’s Trafalgar coat.
The flag captured from the Neptuno was long supposed to be a Spanish ensign but is Austrian. The Spanish ship was presumably carrying it so that she could sail under false colours if outnumbered and needing to flee (Austria, in alliance with Britain at the time, was a significant sea-power).
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The Hilton Chapel with the replica flags. Elizabeth’s parents are commemorated on the monument behind the Austrian ensign
Stephen used his prize money to buy a local property, which he extended and renamed Trafalgar House, located on Vicarage Rd, between Selling church and Gushmere. He continued his naval career, retiring as a Commander. He died in 1872 and is buried in Selling churchyard. According to O’Byrne’s A Naval Biographical Dictionary (1849) he had nine children; his youngest daughter rejoiced in the name Victoria Minotaur.
Stephen and Robert’s brother George also pursued a naval career and attained the rank of Commander. Their youngest brother William, commemorated