Irish 19th Century mahogany Bureau stamped J.Kerr & Co., No. 68931. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,500 AT HAMMER
By family tradition this bureau was a gift from Sir Winston Churchill to General Sir Bindon Blood. It comes up as lot 576 at Fonsie Mealy’s sale in Castlecomer on March 5 and 6 with an estimate of €1,000-€1,500.
Churchill served under Blood on the North West Frontier in 1897 and dedicated his first non-fiction book – The Story of the Malakand Field Force – to him. Churchill’s dedication reads: “Major-General Sir Bindon Blood, K.C.B., under whose command the operations therein recorded were carried out; by whose generalship they were brought to a successful conclusion; and to whose kindness the author is indebted for the most valuable and fascinating experience of his life”.
Born in 1842 Blood attended The Royal School, Banagher, Co. Offaly, Queen’s College, Galway and the Addiscombe Military College before being commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1860. After service in Egypt, Afghanistan, India and South Africa he retired to London in 1907. He was made colonel commandant of the Royal Engineers in 1914 and worked to recruit soldiers for the First World War. He was aged 94 when he was made Chief Royal Engineer in 1936. He died in 1940.