A rare George I provincial sterling silver tankard, Newcastle 1721 by Francis Batty II (C.1680-1728, freedom 19th Jan 1702) Of gently tapering cylindrical form upon a moulded foot, the body with an applied girdle. The hollow double C scroll handle with a shaped terminal, leading to a stepped double domed lid raised by a moulded scroll thumbpiece. The handle with contemporaneous engraved initials D over W*S in Roman script. Fully marked to the body with right facing lion passant, the lid marked to the top near thumbpiece with leopard’s head and right racing lion passant, the handle with makers mark only. Height – 18 cm / 7.15 inches Weight – 803 grams / 25.82 ozt The right facing lion passant mark was a peculiarity of Newcastle silver in 1721 and 1723-27, the only other instance of a right facing lion passant being used by an assay office is on York silver sporadically in the early 19th century. The interesting position of the part-marks on the lid, which ordinarily if marked at all would have been place inside the lid or to the bezel. This choice of marking position recalls the procedure of marking flat top tankard of the late 17th/early 18th century with full marks across the lid in front of the thumbpiece. Francis Batty, senior, and junior were two of the most prominent silversmiths operating in Newcastle in this period. Francis Batty I (c. 1653-1706) was elected first assay master of the Goldsmiths Company on the 24 June 1702. He married the widow of his master John Dowthwaite (d.1673), Susanna on the 23rd May 1676. Their son and apprentice Francis Batty II began his seven years training on the 29th Sep 1682, before he was two years of age! He was granted freedom by patrimony on the 19th January 1702. He took on many noticeable apprentices; Robert Makepeace (1707/08), John Carnaby (1709), Henry Martin (1710), Michaell Jenkins (1714), George Bulman (1717/18), Issac Cookson (1720) and lastly George Hetherington (1723, later turned over to George Bulman in 1728). He was fined several times for taking on more apprentices before the previous apprentice had completed three years. One might interpret that in one of two ways; the Batty enterprise was operating at such a capacity that it was able to absorb the work of so many apprentices, alternatively that the sums of money provided for the training were useful in leaner times. Upon his death his widow Sarah Simpson oversaw the sale of “[a] summer-house and Garden in Newcastle, nigh to the Town’s Walls leading to the White Fryer Tower, late of the Estate of Mr Francis Batty, Goldsmith, deceased” on the 3rd May 1729. He apprentices Robert Makepeace, John Carnaby and highly prolific Issac Cookson went onto become competent silversmiths, whereas his last apprentice George Hetherington went to Jamaica to work, where a few examples bearing his mark are known to have survived (Robert Barker collection).