Lloyd's Patriotic Fund vase, 1807-1808, awarded to Major John Hamill, Royal Regiment of Malta, for service at the Battle of Maida, 1806

Silver, made by Benjamin Smith, hallmarked London, 1807-1808.

A classic Greek Volute Krater shape in three parts: the cover with a cast figure of a lion walking on a plain circular base; the shoulder with gadroon border, fruiting laurel border and scroll border on matted grounds; the main body with a repoussé florid meandering scroll frieze, on a matted ground with rope twist borders, flanked by a pair of tall vertical handles with rosette bosses and rope twist banding over a rosette terminal and a formal foliate spray, the front with a chased panel of Hercules slaying the Hydra, the verso with Britannia, seated, her raised hand supporting a figure of Victory, all over a formal band of anthemions and foliate sprigs upon the stiff leaf and acanthus chased socle foot.

The vase is Inscribed on the shoulder 'From the Patriotic Fund at Lloyds to Major John Hamill of the Royal Regiment of Malta. In testimony of his gallant conduct at the Battle of Maida in Calabria on the 4th of July 1806, in which the pride of the presumptuous enemy was severely humbled, and the superiority of the British troops most gloriously proved.'.

Founded in 1803 at the Lloyd's Coffee House in London, the Lloyd's Patriotic Fund was a charity set up to support wounded service personnel and the families of those killed in action. It also awarded prizes such as swords, silverware and money for acts of merit and gallantry in the service of the Crown.

The Battle of Maida on 4 July 1806 was a victory for Major-General John Stuart's British and Neapolitan-Sicilian army against the French outside the town of San Pietro di Maida in Calabria. The British expedition to Calabria aimed to encourage insurrection against the French within the Kingdom of Naples and prevent any potential invasion of Sicily.