NORTHUMBERLAND, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle Grand Stand, 1810, a silver pass, unsigned, from the same obv. die as previous, rev. named (Sir H. Vane Tempest Bart M.P.), 32mm, 12.98g (W –; D & W –; Mitchiner p.1860). Cleaned in the past, otherwise very fine and very rare £240-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Racing Tickets and Passes, the Property of a North Country Collector.

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Provenance: W.J. Noble Collection, Part II, Noble Numismatics Pty Auction 61B (Melbourne), 3-4 August 1999, lot 1081 [from Spink 1975].

Sir Henry Vane Tempest, 2nd Bt (1771-1813), inherited his father’s baronetcy in 1794 and served as Whig MP for the city of Durham 1794-1800 and 1807-13, as well as two terms as mayor of Hartlepool in 1798-9 and 1806-7. Appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Durham Volunteer Cavalry in 1797, he was a noted sportsman and owner of the racehorse Hambletonian (see Lots 3182-3). A Parliamentary contemporary noted that ‘he is handsome and profligate but…coarse in his manners, a jockey and a hard drinker, with a violent temper and no understanding.’ In 1799 he married Anne MacDonnell, 2nd Countess of Antrim, ‘the great Irish prize in the matrimonial lottery’ but the union proved to be one of convenience only as both parties were having affairs. Prone to bouts of ill-health, Vane Tempest was rumoured to have died shortly after the 1807 General Election and certainly his occasional visits to the House in his second term as an MP were marked by numerous votes against government policy. He died of apoplexy on 1 August 1813