A Fine Collection of Racing Tickets and Passes, the Property of a North Country Collector

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, Northampton, a uniface octagonal silver pass, unsigned, racehorse standing right, winning-post in background, stippled field, back named (41, Honble. Col. Anson), 57 x 36mm, 32.12g (W 1551; D & W –; cf. Baldwin FPL 1999, B 159). Some scuffing on the back, otherwise very fine and extremely rare £400-500

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: Bt T. Millett.

Major-General George Anson, CB (1797-1857); educ. Eton; entered the Army as an Ensign in the 3rd Scots Fusiliers, with the baggage in reserve at the battle of Waterloo, 1815 (medal); MP for Great Yarmouth 1818-35, Stoke-on-Trent 1836-7 and Staffordshire South 1837-53; Clerk of the Ordnance 1841-52; commander of the Madras Army 1854; C-in-C in India 1856. In India he caused resentment by showing bias against the sepoys and said that the greased cartridge issue which spawned the Mutiny was simply a pretext for protest. In Simla at the outbreak of the mutiny at Meerut and Delhi he set off to retake the capital but died of cholera four days into the march on 27 May 1857. Anson was a prominent racehorse owner and member of the Jockey Club, winning the Derby with Attila in 1842 and the Oaks with The Princess in 1844.

Race meetings were staged unofficially at Northampton Heath in the 17th century but were regularised in the late 1730s by the Earl Spencer and in 1737 the first official meeting took place. New grandstands were erected in 1844 (and the three following Lots almost certainly date from that time), but before then the racecourse had the dubious reputation as being used for public executions. Racing ceased in 1904 after a fatal accident involving spectators