Historic pottery, currently available in my shop! My 17th/18th c mug collection is out of the shop currently for a gallery show over the holidays, but I have some oil lamps available, and a pipkin!
The wee lamps hold a single wick, and should be used on a saucer or something as there is no built in drip catcher.
The large one can hold up to three wicks at once to provide more light, and has a drip catcher and handle.
I offer hand braided wicks that optimize fuel use and light production, but in a pinch any scrap of natural fiber (not synthetics! they are plastic and will release toxic fumes and also melt!) fabric or yarn that you twist together will work, more or less.
Any plant or animal based oil can be used, including used cooking oil. Examples include olive oil, leftover fat from cooking meat, etc. DO NOT use petroleum products like kerosene or oils sold for more modern oil lamps, as it is very unsafe to do so in an open container like this.
Pipkins are a type of ceramic cookware common in Europe from the 13th through 18th centuries, intended for cooking over hot embers or coals on a hearth. My pipkins are not based on specific extant pieces unless otherwise specified, being instead based on the general characteristics commonly seen in historic pipkins. Further information is contained in my shop listing. For more modern uses, they make nice yarn bowls, and are good for watering house plants.
Edward Topsell’s The Historie of Fovre-Footed Beastes (1607) is one source for “The Gorgon,” a scaly bovine creature with poisoned breath due to its diet of toxic herbs. This is the gorgon Gary Gygax adapted for Dungeons & Dragons, different from the race of serpent-haired medusas, the names of which have upset Greek mythology fans for decades.
Samuel Graves by James Northcote, probably 1770s/1780s.
Considering yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (17 June 1775), I thought it would be nice to write a little something about the man whose portrait I’ve cropped to make a header and who was involved at Bunker Hill, too. Largely left out of the larger narratives of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Graves, then a vice-admiral, served as Commander-in-Chief of the North American Station from mid-1774 to early 1776.
Because I’ve collected quite a fair bit of information on him, I’m going to split my biographic account up and will focus on his early life in this post.
Early life
Samuel was born the fourth of five children to Jane and Samuel Graves in what’s modern-day Northern Ireland on 17 April 1713. Originally from Yorkshire, Samuel’s great-uncle and grandfather had come to Ireland during the latter half of the 17th century. Samuel Graves Sr. (1674–1727), a reverend, settled in Castledawson, Co. Londonderry on a country estate called Gravesend. Gravesend is still around; today it’s the clubhouse of a local golf club.
His mother, Jane, née Moore (1666–1767), is believed to have lived on the Isle of Man prior to marrying Reverend Graves. When exactly they were married has been lost to time, but the Reverend was eight years his wife’s junior and given that at least three of her children were verifiably born while she was in her forties (46 or 47 when she had Samuel Jr.), she may have married at a somewhat older age than was considered common for a first-time bride at the time.
Young Samuel had three older brothers called Thomas, James and John (c. 1711–1776) and a presumably younger sister, Olivia. Little is known about his siblings; several of John’s sons would follow their uncle into the navy, one of them being the future Sir Thomas Graves, Nelson’s second-in-command at Copenhagen in 1801, and Olivia, married to a Henry Knox of Londonderry City, was widowed at some point in time. Thomas and James remained unmarried, but Thomas, who lived the life of a landed gentleman, appears to have had either one or even two children with his housekeeper. A son from this affair, David Graves, joined the navy as well.
Reverend Graves died aged only 53 in 1727. In his will, he stipulated that he wanted his body to be buried in the graveyard in nearby Magherafelt and provided in different ways for his five children with his wife Jane and oldest son Thomas as executors.
Rather curiously for a fourth son, Samuel Jr. inherited the Gravesend estate. It appears his older brothers already had other plans with their lives that did not involve the family estate; for instance, John Graves, then about 16, planned on following his father’s footsteps and was a student at Trinity College Dublin at the time of his father’s death, and was provided for monetarily in Reverend Graves’ will.
Poignantly, Samuel’s was the second generation of Graves’ to lose their father young; the Reverend Graves’ father James John Graves (b. c. 1654), a captain in the army, fell victim to a holdup murder in 1689 alongside his wife Maria when they were staying overnight at an inn in Glaslough, Co. Monaghan, leaving behind their sons Samuel and Thomas and a daughter called Mary.
It appears that having lost a parent young left a lasting impression on Samuel considering several developments in his later life, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves for the moment.
What exactly he did in the years immediately after his father’s death is unknown; very likely, being only 14, he may have attended a local school or been tutored at home while slowly growing into the care and management of his estate, something he proved to be quite good at later in life.
Early Career
In 1732, he decided to join the Royal Navy and received his lieutenant’s commission in 1739. Again, his whereabouts during the seven year gap between entering the navy and his lieutenant’s commission have been lost in the mists of time, but the fog eventually clears as he slowly starts to step into the light of history during the 1740s. His first recorded active service dates to 1741, serving on board HMS Norfolk (80) during the Battle of Cartagena des Indias, 13 March – 20 May 1741. The captain of said third-rate was his paternal uncle, Captain Thomas Graves, and one of the midshipmen on board HMS Norfolk was a cousin of the same name. Both Midshipman Thomas Graves and Lieutenant Samuel Graves would become Commanders-in-Chief of the North American Station during the 1770s and 1780s.
Left: Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves (1677–1755) by an unknown artist; right: Admiral Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Gravesend (1725– 1802) by Thomas Gainsborough, dated 1786. Samuel Graves’ uncle and cousin.
In the next installment, I am going to take a closer look at the beginning of his career and the rather eventful 1750s and 1760s including two marriages, two blackmail letters, two godsons, a court case and one famous battle prior to becoming Commander-in-Chief of the North American Station.
References:
David Graves on morethannelson [accessed 18 June 2021].
Jane (Moore) Graves (1666 - 1767) on Wikitree [accessed 18 June 2021].
Kearsley, George, Kearsley’s Complete Peerage, of England, Scotland and Ireland (Vol. II), 1802 [accessed 18 June 2021].
Public Record office Northern Ireland (PRONI), ref. D1062/4/B/3, referenced here [accessed 18 June 2021].
Samuel Graves on threedecks.com [accessed 18 June 2021].
The Graves Family of Yorkshire and Mickleton Manor, Gloucestershire, England (Family tree/overview, not always entirely accurate) [accessed 18 June 2021].
Image credits:
Samuel Graves by James Northcote, Wikimedia Commons, photograph by Christie’s [accessed 18 June 2021].
Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves, 1677-1755 by an unknown artist, image property of the Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) [accessed 18 June 2021].
Admiral Lord Graves, 1st Baron Graves by Thomas Gainsborough, dated 1786, Wikimedia Commons, photograph by Sotheby’s [accessed 18 June 2021].
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest: Part I.
English philosopher Mary Astell’s protofeminist book, which explores her ideas on establishing institutions for both the secular and religious education of women. First published anonymously in 1694 ‘By a Lover of her Sex.’
