As the previous page explains, Dr Nicholas Nugent (1781-1843) was involved in the abolition of slavery in Antigua. He served as a judge and a member of the Antiguan House of Assembly of which he was Speaker for 23 years. On his retirement he was presented with a silver dinner service with the family motto and inscription: ‘Presented to the The Honble. Nicholas Nugent, Judge of the Court of Vice-Admiralty of the Island of Antigua, by the unanimous vote of both Houses of Legislature, as a Tribute of Admiration for his upright, able and distinguished discharge of the Duties of that important Office.’ It is thought that the 1829 Paul Storr silver epergne, an ornamental table centrepiece (right, and hallmark below) which also has the Nugent crest and motto, was part of the dinner service despite their having different more recent provenance.
The epergne has remained in the possession of Dr Nicholas’s successors over five generations while the dinner service was inherited by a separate branch of the family before being offered for sale at Christie’s in New York in 1985. One item, a meat dish, subsequently came into the possession of a Canadian collector who tells the story of how he acquired it.
In June 2024 my wife and I purchased a large silver meat platter at auction in Toronto. We were wanting to find a dish which would fit a mazarine, a deep dish which sits within the platter and is pierced to allow juices to escape, which we had acquired earlier. (Mazarine pictured right sitting in the meat dish.) The auction house provided measurements which convinced us that it would be a close fit, even if it wasn’t the dish made by Paul Storr, one of the greatest English silversmiths and it had an extremely interesting history to follow up on. As it turned out the mazarine was a perfect fit possibly because it was made by William Frisbee, an early partner of Paul Storr who may have continued using their old patterns.
The auction house provided a picture (left) and description saying the dish had been purchased at the 1985 Christie’s auction by Sam and Ester Sarick of Toronto. An article in the Toronto Globe and Mail in 2011 told us that Samuel Sarick was a real estate/construction businessman and financier who had been an art collector since the mid-1960s. He is perhaps most famous for collecting Inuit, Chinese and African art. A member of the board of trustees of the Art Gallery of Ontario since 1997, he and his wife 
have either donated or lent more than 3,000 individual pieces to the AGO gallery. They also owned Picasso’s L’Aubade, shown at the gallery in the summer and fall of 1988 as part of exhibition titled Picasso at Large in Toronto Collections, and subsequently sold by them in 2011 at Sotheby’s New York for more than US $23million, a record for a late-period Picasso sold at auction. It was obvious they had a good eye for exceptional pieces which is likely why they purchased the meat dish.
No other Nugent pieces were available at the Toronto sale but we obtained the 1985 New York Christie’s sale catalogue which was quite revealing. It indicated that the majority of the Nugent Service at that sale was from the estate of Mrs Percy Uris. However, two meat dishes came from ‘Another Property’. Of the six pages of items from the Uris estate three covered the Nugent Service. We found a New York Times article relating to the sale which gave more information regarding the possible provenance of the other two meat dishes. “From Oct. 5 through 15, Christie’s will be offering the contents of two Manhattan triplexes, one that belonged to Ruth Nugent Head, who was the daughter of the Detroit department store founder Sebastian S. Kresge, and one that was owned by Bonaventura Devine, who was the wife 
of the Wall Street securities trader Christopher J. Devine.” Ruth’s husband was Lieut. Col. Henry William Nugent Head, retired, holder of Britain’s Military Cross, [who] died June 1964 at his home, 812 Park Avenue, at the age of 66. Colonel Head was graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, England, in 1917, and served in World War I and until 1923 with King’s Royal Rifle Corps, when he transferred to the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars, stationed in India. Colonel Head came to New York in 1930 and entered the investment banking business. In 1933, he married Miss Kresge. Kermit Roosevelt [son of Theodore Roosevelt] was best man for the marriage ceremony at St. Thomas Church here. In 1938, Colonel Head rejoined the British Army 
and in World War II he served in North Africa as liaison officer between British and American forces. He was then named commandant of the school of mountain warfare in Lebanon. Colonel Head retired from the British Army in 1945 and devoted much of his time after that to furthering improved British-American relations.”
We needed to find a connection between the Head family and the Nugents of Antigua to explain how two meat platters identified by Christie’s as coming from ‘Another Property’ came into the possession of 
the Heads. Burke’s Irish Family Records provided this memorial and descent information (on page 884): “In Loving Memory of Annette Catherine Head Wife of Henry Haswell Head and Daughter of Major Andrew Nugent and Viscountess Bangor Born 23rd Of Oct 1845 Died 26th Of Jan 1930.” Major Andrew Nugent was born in 1809. In 1812 his father, Andrew Savage, assumed the surname Nugent upon inheriting the property of his great-uncle John Nugent. Therefore, any birth records for Andrew Nugent 1809-1889, if they exist, are likely to be found under the name Andrew Savage.
The Irish Archives Resource provided the following: “The Nugent of Portaferry papers derive from the Portaferry House branch of the Anglo-Norman family of Savage of the Ards, Co. Down, which changed its name to Nugent in 1812 following the succession of Andrew Savage of Portaferry to the Dysart estate, baronies of Moyashel and Magheradernon, Co. Westmeath, previously owned by his kinsman, John Nugent of Dysart. This change of name gave rise to the famous remark of a disgruntled uncle of Andrew Savage/Nugent that he, for one, would ‘rather be an old savage than a new gent!’ John Nugent was second son of Andrew Nugent, of Dysart, Co. Westmeath. It seems, therefore that there was no direct connection between the Nugent/Savages of Dysart and the descendants of Nicholas Nugent of Antigua. (Picture: Nicholas Nugent holds the meat platter that once belonged to his great great great grandfather Dr Nicholas Nugent.)
A remaining question was: How did the Uris’s family acquire items from the Nugent Service? A New York Times article of September 6, 1985 elucidates: “Occasionally when planning an on-the-premises sale, certain prized pieces are held out and later auctioned in New York showrooms where they are likely to do better in more specialized sales. This fall, for example, Christie’s will be offering the silver, European furniture, 
Oriental rugs and Chinese porcelains belonging to Percy Uris, the real estate developer, who died in 1971, and his wife, Joanne. While viewing is scheduled from Nov. 12 through 16 at Broadhollow, their Georgian-style mansion in Brookville, L.I., for security reasons the sale itself will be held at the Milleridge Cottage in nearby Jericho Nov. 17-18, 1985. Being saved for a separate auction, however, are several pieces of silver that will be included in a sale of English and Continental silver on Oct. 15 at Christie’s Park Avenue salesroom. Moreover, most of the Uris’s Impressionist and modern paintings and sculpture will be sold in New York as well on Nov. 12-13.”
Another question is what happened to the rest of the Nugent Service. The pages (above) from the Christie’s catalogue show the items sold at the sale. The meat dish is the one we have, Lot 211. Two smaller meat dishes (‘Another Property’) were also sold at the sale. These may be from the estate of Mrs Nugent Head or from children of the Uris’s. It is possible that many other pieces from the Nugent Service were sold at the Christie’s Broadhollow auction mentioned above in the news article. (We found an item of furniture from Broadhollow sold by Doyle’s New York in November 2020 but have not found any other items.)
Christie’s will not disclose who consigned items or who bought them but they did confirm that all the other Nugent pieces were from the Uris estate. Complete dinner services from any period in English silver are extremely rare. We know of one made for the Earl of Egremont of Petworth and another made for the Duke of Norfolk. A third, the Gladstone Dinner Service, was presented in 1824 by the townsmen of Liverpool to Sir John Gladstone, M.P. (1764-1851), whose son William became prime minister, and is the only service by Storr to survive more or less complete. The Gladstone Service consisted of: pair of six-light candelabra; pair of soup tureens and covers; four oblong entree dishes and covers on Sheffield Plate stands; four oval entree dishes and covers on Sheffield Plate stands; four wine-coolers modelled on the Warwick Vase; two sets of four salts and spoons; four sauce tureens and covers; pair of second course dishes; graduated set of ten meat dishes; pair of salvers; seven-piece tea and coffee service.
We conclude that the items sold at the Christie sale represent only a portion of the service which was presented to Dr Nicholas Nugent of Antigua in 1829.
Nicholas Nugent, with a Canadian collector who prefers to remain anonymous who who also provided several of the illustrations