This cup presented to Ralph Fletcher is priced £22,500 from Wick Antiques.
Wick Antiques has on offer a monumental silver-gilt cup and cover presented to Ralph Fletcher (1757-1832), who is remembered for his actions during the ‘Peterloo Massacre’.
Fletcher was born into a wealthy Lancashire coal-mining family. He used his role as a magistrate to suppress political activism in north-west cotton towns. In 1812, Luddites attacked Lancashire mills in reaction to the introduction of automated textile equipment and burned Westhoughton Mill to the ground along with its 200 steam-powered looms. Fletcher was suspected to have spies who incited violence, but the reprisals he coordinated had four men hanged and nine transported. He was voted to recieve this cup on July 12, 1812, in a meeting chaired by a fellow magistrate.