Craigdarroch Castle : Object : case [998.040.001.002]

Object

Accession Number

998.040.001.002

Description

A leather and velvet case for a pair of riding spurs, the top and bottom of equal size, the two hinges equally spaced, inset on the back, two hooks pinned to the bottom front to latch to the top front, the leather covering incised with intersecting bands of two lines and burgundy in colour, the box interior lined in bright red velvet, the inside bottom designed to hold two riding spurs.

Narrative

This case held the gilt riding spurs used by Lt. Robert Dunsmuir Harvey on special dress occassions.

History of Use

This case and the dress spurs it was made to contain were used by Lt. Robert Dunsmmuir Harvey (1878-1901) while he served in the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars regiment in India. Following his death in 1901, his regiment sent the case and spurs and other personal effects to his sister Elizabeth Georgina Harvey and his grandmother Joan Olive Dunsmuir at Craigdarroch. Sometime later, the spurs and other effects came into possession of R.D. Harvey's brother, Col. James Swan Harvey, who kept them at his residence on Knapp Island, B.C. The sabretache and other items were next inherited by J.S. Harvey's son, Robert Oliver Dunsmuir Harvey of Victoria, B.C., and then by his son, the late Robert James Harvey who lived in Victoria, Nanaimo, and before his death in 2013, on Denman Island, B.C.