Mystery of the Keswick silver salver

Recently a salver withn links to Cumbria was sold by at auction in York. The auctioneers described the salver:

“Keswick School of Industrial Art - Arts and Craft silver presentation salver with inscription 'To Captain Broach by Officers Past and Present of E Company 1st VB Border Regiment' with regimental badge and dated February 1897 | Silver | 141818”

Questions

The salver poses two questions. Why was it given to Captain Broach and why in 1897?

Gifts of this sort usually have a dedication that explains why it is being presented. The usual reasons are: marriage, promotion, long service , retirement or a specific action by the recipient.

If it was for a marriage surely the bride ‘s name would have been included if only as Mrs Broach.

It can’t be Broach’s retirement because the Carlisle Journal has Captain Broach in command of a Company during the Battalion’s Annual Camp at Fleetwood in August 1901:

“A and Companies then took up a defensive position behind the Butts and were in their turn attacked by the remaining Companies Captain Halton directed the frontal attack, Captain Broach making a flank attack by way of the shore. The result of the " engagement " was indecisive.”

Nor can it be promotion. In the 1894 Army Lists, Broach is already a Captain.

Industrial Arts

However it is possible to add a little more to the news item. The Keswick School of Industrial Arts was founded in 1894 by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley and his wife Edith. It provided employment for unemployed men in the area.There is a wonderful web site with examples of their work. The school closed in 1984.

Volunteer Battalion

Volunteer battalions were the lineal descendent of the Rifle Volunteers units that had sprung up because of the fear of war with France in the mid–19th Century.

The Childer’s reforms of 1881 brought the Volunteer Regiments into Regular Army as part of the localisation started in 1872. The 1st Cumberland Rifle Volunteers established in 1860, became The 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Border Regiment.

The Editor