Lot 3791

Description

Royal Scottish Society of Arts, (1849), award medal in silver (47mm), reverse inscribed, To/Mr. Wm. R. Douglas/Carpenter/Calder House/For His Machine For/Sawing Firewood/The Silver Medal/Value Five Sovereigns/1849'. Small edge nick and a few small digs on reverse, otherwise good very fine.

The barony of Calder was occupied by the Douglas family until the first half of the 14th century whereupon it was gifted to Sir James de Sandilands when Eleanor Douglas married him. The mansion, Calder House was built in the 16th century. It is possible that William Reid Douglas, a carpenter at Calder House was one and the same as the William Reid Douglas who immigrated to Otago, New Zealand and in about 1860 set up a small sawmill at the confluence of the Leith and School Creek. Its wheel was driven by water from the Pine Hill Creek, picked up at the site of the present bridge over the creek.