MAKER'S MARK OF SEBASTIAN AND JAMES CRESPELL, LONDON 1772

The arms are those of Forbes, probably for George Forbes (1760-1837), sixth Earl of Granard in the peerage of Ireland and first Baron Granard in the United Kingdom. The arms are surrounded by the motto and badges of the Order of St Patrick, founded in 1783 to reward those of high office in Ireland and Irish Peers on whose support the government of the day depended, although Forbes is recorded as having refused it. It served as the national order of Ireland. The service was probably presented to Forbes, or otherwise acquired by him, with his arms and the order engraved to mark his creation as a peer of the United Kingdom, as Baron Granard, of Castle Donnington, in the country of Leicester, his father-in-law's seat, 24 February 1806. Forbes was Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in Ireland and a General in the army. He opposed Buckingham's administration in Ireland; raised an Irish regiment in 1794 and commanded another at Castlebar in 1798. He opposed the union. He married 10 may 1779, Lady Selina Frances Rawdon, fourth daughter of the first Earl of Moira. His cousin was Henry William Bayly, second Earl of Uxbridge and first Marquess of Anglesey, who distinguished himself as leader of the Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo. Forbes died in Paris 9 June 1837. The service was additionally engraved at a later date with a ribbon-tied festoon surmounting quartered arms impaling those of another with the motto of the Wade family