59 - ANNA BRASSEY’S SILVER FLASK FROM R.Y.S. SUNBEAM

ANNA BRASSEY’S SILVER FLASK FROM R.Y.S. SUNBEAM The trumpet-shaped flask with hinged cover engraved with the cypher AB, the bell end engraved with the badge of the Royal Yacht Squadron and Sunbeam on the garter, with London hallmarks for Thornhill & Co., 1883 -- 10in. (25.5cm.) high Launched in 1874 and built by Bowdler, Chaffer & Co. for Thomas Brassey M.P. later, first Earl Brassey (1836-1918), Sunbeam was a 159 ft three-masted barquentine with auxiliary steam power. In July 1876, Brassey and his wife Anna (1839-1889) embarked on an around-the-world voyage which Anna chronicled in A Voyage in the “Sunbeam”: Our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months, her first of several bestselling accounts of their many adventures in the yacht. In 1889, Anna Brassey fell ill and died at sea with her body being consigned to the Indian Ocean. After service with the Red Cross during the First World War, Sunbeam was acquired by Walter Runciman, later first Viscount Runciman. The yacht was scrapped in 1930 when Runciman commissioned a new yacht, Sunbeam II. Good Condition.