Lot 418

Description

Aboriginal Breast Plate or Gorget, Sydney, (1825), in copper, (60 x 132mm), in true military gorget shape, inscribed "George Innes / Capn. Pipers Constable" in two lines, above Piper's family crest and twig decoration either side.

Ex Noble Numismatics Sale 54, lot 862A and R.A. Climpson Collection.

Found on the previous owner's property, Rockdale near Bendemeer, 38kms north of Tamworth, in 1970. This is eight kms west of Kourie's Camp (now Roseneath) on the Port Macquarie Road. Corroborees were held at Kourie's Camp.

Major Archibald Clunes Innes (1800-0857) was appointed aide-de-camp to the Lieut. Governor of N.S.W. in December 1825 after arriving from Hobart in May of that year. A younger brother George Innes received one of the first land grants in Bathurst Plains in 1823. Captain Piper had arrived in Sydney in February 1792 as an ensign in the N.S.W. Corps. Following an impressive record of service in the colony and the accumulation of considerable wealth (which he was later to lose), he was appointed magistrate in 1819 by Governor Macquarie, a close friend. In 1825 he was chairman of directors of the bank of N.S.W. It was at this time that he had close ties with Major Innes and thus the period for the issue of this gorget to an Aboriginal constable with the given name "George Innes" (source Australian Dictionary of Biography). For seven other "king plates" presented in recognition of service see (pp. 118-121) of "Poignant Regalia 19th century Aboriginal Images and Breastplates" by Tania Cleary, Sydney, 1993.