MARK OF JOHN WHITE, LONDON, 1720, BRITANNIA STANDARD

THE BULTEEL JOHN WHITE COMMISSION
The present lot formed part of an important suite of silver made by John White in 1720. It included a pair of tazze, a pair of octafoil salvers and a larger tazza. It is thought the suite belonged to James Bulteel M.P. of Fleet Damerell, Devon, who married Mary Crocker, daughter and heiress of Courtenay Crocker of Lyneham in 1718. The silver descended in the Bulteel family until it was sold at Christie's, London, on 14 December 1911, lots 55B, C, D, and H. The initials ICB found on the base of the jug are likely to have been engraved for the son of James and Mary Bulteel, James Courtenay Bulteel (1720-1746), or possibly for John Crocker Bulteel (d.1843) who served as M.P. for Devonshire, and married Lady Elizabeth Gray, 2nd daughter of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey.

The three octafoil salvers that descended in the Bulteel family share the same coat-of-arms, motto and engraved initials as the present lot, and are now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, illustrated in Timothy Schroder's scholarly three volume catalogue of the collection, British and Continental Silver in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2009, pp. 242-244, cat. no. 87. The pair of tazze, whereabouts unknown, were also presumably engraved with the Bulteel arms and initials (see A. J. H. Sale and V. Brett, 'John White: Some Recent Research', Silver Society Journal, Autumn 1996).

JOHN BULTEEL M.P.
John Bulteel was a Tory lawyer of French Protestant ancestry. He worked as a legal advisor for several landed families in Devon. In 1701, he ran for the seat in parliament for Tavistock, but was not successful. However, he won the election in November 1703 without any opposition. He was regarded as a Low Church member of parliament and opposed the Court candidate for Speaker. Bulteel was a member of the October Club and one of the worthy patriots who exposed the mismanagement of the previous administration. He was appointed twice to the commission for the resumption of King William's grants. Bulteel also voted in favour of extending the charter of the East India Company. He was appointed as a commissioner of public accounts in 1714. Bulteel was identified as a Tory on the Worsley list and retired from the House of Commons after the dissolution. In 1716, he inherited Flete House and other Devon estates from John Modyford Hele. Despite being listed as a dubious Jacobite sympathizer in a document sent to the Pretender in 1721, he died in 1757. His will leaves all his household goods, including his plate, to his eldest son.