A substantial yacht's tiller from the schooner Petrel R.Y.S., circa 1852
Length: 107in (272cm.)
This mahogany tiller has a square section rudder head with three inset brass S-shaped banners flanked by a carved castle roundel, the top banner inscribed ‘Petrel R.Y.S.’. The shaft is carved throughout with finely observed ropework and terminates in a brass cuff and Turk's head knot. English, circa 1852. In the long and glamorous history of the Royal Yacht Squadron, there were several yachts named Petrel, but only one whose size would require a tiller as large and handsome as this example. Designed and built by George & Thomas Inman Bros. at Lymington in 1852, this Petrel was a big schooner registered at 110 tons gross (57 net) and measuring 70 feet in length. She was owned by R.Y.S. member Philip Perceval from 1858 to 1866 and then again from 1867 to 1869. (Incidentally, his son, who became Sir Philip Hunloke, was generally regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest helmsman; he won a bronze medal for Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics, was King George V’s Sailing Master on Royal Yacht Britannia
from 1920 and commodore of the R. Y. S. from 1943 until 1947.) Petrel was extended to 84 feet in 1866. Her next owner, Lord Richard Grosvenor of 76 Brook Street, Mayfair. Despite being elected to the R. Y.S., Cowes, in May 1870, it would seem he kept Petrel primarily for cruising from Dartmouth, as there is no record of her taking part in any racing activity. Lord Richard de Aquila Grosvenor, 1st Baron Stalbridge (1837 – 1912), was the second surviving son of Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge and, during an adventurous youth, toured the western United States and was present at the sack of the Summer Palace in Peking in 1860. Elected a Liberal M.P. in 1861, he became a Privy Counsellor in 1872 and was made Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household by Mr. Gladstone, a post he held until the government fell in 1874. Back in office in 1880, he served as Chief Whip until 1885, but then quarrelled with Gladstone
