This lighter is made from Burghley Buttons - the buttons on the servants’ livery. It is silver plated as the silver has rubbed off on the high spots. Commonly known as trench art, the lighter was owned by Thomas William Glitherow, the great, grandfather of Trish Auciello, and who worked as a wheelwright on the Burghley Estate for 50 years. Thomas was born around 1874, so he would have been 40 in 1914 when WW1 started. Thomas would have been aged 42 when in January 1916 when the Military Service Act was passed. This imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18 and 41, but exempted the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker. In 1918 during the last months of the war, the Military Service (No. 2) Act raised the age limit to 51. Conscription was extended until 1920 to enable the army to deal with continuing trouble spots in the Empire and parts of Europe. There is evidence that his son George, a blacksmith, serving in WW1, would have had the skills to make it, perhaps as a present for his father?