Poor Queen Caroline—Washed her hair in turpentine...
19th century nursery rhyme
Royal scandals are not new to the British.
In 1820 George IV attempted to rid himself of his adulterous wife, whose affair with the Italian Count Bartolommeo Burgami had become the talk of every European salon. Caroline’s trial
in the House of Lords ended without a verdict, leaving her free to take her husband’s side as queen at his coronation in 1821. The king’s next move was to have her barred from entry into Westminster Abbey. Two weeks later she took ill and conveniently died.
The British public was outraged by the trial and many souvenir jugs and plates were transfer-printed with slogans of support for the Queen. This jug has on its back a verse parodying
the National Anthem and condemning her accusers, calling them the “Green Bag Crew.” This reference alludes to the green baize bag that contained alleged evidence against her and that each day was carried into the courtroom.
Jug, pearlware. ca. 1821.
Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.48,
gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
This interesting example has a fragment of a label...
Llewellynn Jewitt , History of Ceramic Art, 1874.
The Jewitt quote specifically refers to a brown stoneware loving cup (illustrated direction). Formerly in the collection of Derbyshire potter John Brameld but now unlocated, the cup bore an incomplete label saying that it had been made at his Swinton factory. The nearly identical example in the Noël Hume collection, like the Brameld cup is dated 1759. There can be little doubt that this is a twin to the Brameld cup and therefore a defining example of Swinton brown stoneware, of which little is yet known.
Sir, we cannot dig in. There are too many corpses in the mud.
Message to H.Q. from Captain Charles Austin, Passchendaele, August, 1917
There is irony in the fact that the bloodiest war in history spawned the whitest of souvenirs. Inspired by Adolphus Goss and his heraldic china, several competitors produced slip-cast models of virtually every tool of the conflict, from the buses that carried troops to the front to the ambulances that carried them back (2 & 3).
English potters also made model artillery as well as replicas of the shells they shot (5, 7, 8, 13 & 14). They copied hand-grenades from the battlefields and even reproduced the metal pins that were used to fire them (9 & 10). When tanks were introduced, the potters tried to keep pace with the latest developments as the armored monsters evolved from rear wheels to single-tracked successors (15 & 16).
Later the French produced a smaller, faster and more maneuverable Renault tank (17). The war in the air was turned into porcelain planes (20), as were the bombs the British and Germans dropped on each other (18 & 19).
The porcelain war souvenirs made the carnage appear antiseptically unreal. In retrospect, however, we can see a definite change in attitude from 1914’s “Brave Defender” (1) to 1917’s grim survivor known to millions as “Old Bill,” (21) who hunkered down in his sand-bagged dug-out hoping that the bombardments would miss him (22). The arrival of General Pershing and his American dough-boys (23) helped bring the war to its exhausted end. For the British though the world would never be the same again.
1. Figure of a British infantryman in 1914 uniform, porcelain. The plinth is inscribed Our Brave Defender. Willow Art porcelain.
2. Figure of a London bus as a troop transporter, porcelain. Carlton China, Stoke-on-Trent.
3. Model of an ambulance, porcelain. Marked as a gift to the war effort by the Staffordshire China Operatives. Grafton China.
4. Figure of a Red Cross nurse, porcelain. Inscribed Nurse Cavell, who was executed in Brussels as a British spy in 1915. Porcelle, Edinburgh, Scotland, ca. 1915-1924.
5. Figure of a munitions worker, porcelain. Inscribed Shells and More Shells. Carlton China, Stoke-on-Trent.
6. Figure of a clip of .303 rifle bullets, porcelain. Arcadian China.
7. Figure of a howitzer shell, porcelain. Arcadian China.
8. Figure of a howitzer shell, porcelain. Arcadian China.
9. Hand grenade from the Somme battlefield, cast iron.
10. Figure of a copy of the Mills grenade with removable pin, porcelain. Grafton China, ca. 1915.
11. Figure of a steel-helmeted grenade thrower and ammunition box, porcelain. Grafton China, ca. 1915.
12. Figure of a Vickers machine gunner, porcelain. Inscribed Tommy and his machine gun. Arcadian China, ca. 1914-1915.
13. Model of a heavy howitzer, porcelain. Arcadian China.
14. Model of a field artillery piece, porcelain. Waterfall China.
15. Model of a Mark I tank, porcelain. Arcadian China, ca. 1915-1916.
16. Model of the Mark IV heavy tank, porcelain. Incorrectly inscribed as having been used at the Battle of the Ancre in September 1916. Savoy China.
17. Model of a French Renault tank as used by American forces, porcelain. Victoria China, 1918.
18. Model of an incendiary bomb, porcelain. Inscribed Dropped At Maldon 16 April 1915 from a German Zeppelin. Falcon Porcelain Factory.
19. Model of an electrically fused bomb, porcelain. Inscribed Model of German Incendiary Bomb. Carlton China, Stoke-on-Trent.
20. Model of Sopwith Camel, porcelain. Shelley China.
21. Figure of “Old Bill” from Bruce Bairnsfather cartoons, porcelain.
22. Model of a sandbagged dugout, porcelain.
Inscribed Shrapnel Villa and Tommies dugout somewhere in France.
Carlton China, Stoke-on-Trent.
23. Figure of an American doughboy, his cigar missing, porcelain.
This is the only known “heraldic china” rendering of an American WWI serviceman. Grafton China.
Of all the Britons the inhabitants of Kent are by far the most civilized.
Julius Caesar, De Bello Galico, 54 B.C.
The tidal marshlands near the Kentish village of Upchurch were once home to a major potting industry—not unlike Staffordshire in later times. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, archaeological collectors sent their servants into the mud to dig up Romano-British pottery. In the 1950s, the Noël Humes continued this archaeological pursuit. The examples shown here range from superb objects made by master potters (3) to the rejected work of apprentices (5). Along with huge quantities of broken and kiln-spoiled local pottery, the marshes yielded several imports from Europe such as a white ware pitcher (9) and an incense-burner (10).
1. Jar, earthenware. Upchurch, ca. 50 A.D.
2. Jar, earthenware. Upchurch, ca. 80–100 A.D.
3. Beaker, wheel-decorated earthenware. Upchurch, ca. 80–100 A.D.
4. Dish, burnished earthenware. Upchurch, ca. 100–140 A.D.
5. Cup, hand-shaped earthenware. First or second century A.D.
6. Toy barrel, earthenware. Upchurch, probably first century A.D.
7. Storage jar, earthenware. Upchurch, second century A.D.
8. Pitcher, pink-bodied earthenware. Upchurch, ca. 60–130 A.D.
9. Pitcher, white ware. Probably Rhineland, Germany, ca. 120–160 A.D.
10. Tazza or incense burner, white ware. Probably Rhineland, Germany, ca. 120–160 A.D.
…a great number of workmen must have been employed here.
Thomas Wright on the Upchurch Pottery industry, 1875
Two thousand years ago someone who died amid the Upchurch potteries was cremated and buried there in this locally made jar. It was found covered by the accompanying imported Samian Ware dish made by the Rheinzabern potter Statutus (ca. 160–200 A.D.). The burial site consisted of a semi-circle of similar Upchurch urns that contained the remains of puppies. The deceased canines probably were part of a votive offering to the god Robigus, protector of wheat from blight.
1. Jar, earthenware. Upchurch, second century A.D.
2. Dish, red gloss earthenware. Statutus, Rheinzabern, Gaul, ca. 160–200 A.D.
And the Roman left and the Danes blew in—And that’s where your history-books begin!
Rudyard Kipling, The River’s Tale, ca. 1890
The departure of the last Romans from Britain in 422 A.D. left the native tribes to a far more primitive way of life. In many areas, the art of using a potter’s wheel was forgotten, and ancient potting techniques returned to popular use. For example, in East Anglia, Saxon potters crafted burial urns that were laboriously built up from hand-smoothed coils of clay. This one dates from about 500 to 600 A.D.
1. Urn, earthenware. East Anglia, ca. 500–600 A.D. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, 2000.10.
…And broughte of myghty ale a large quart.
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ca.1387
English medieval pottery production focused on simple cooking pots and pitchers for the dispensing of ale and wine. Decoration was usually limited to green glaze and pinched feet—literally formed between the potter’s fingertips. When something more elaborate was attempted, the inspiration invariably came from France. The pitcher on the left dates from around 1400 and was probably made by a French potter working near London.
1. Pitcher, lead-glazed earthenware. London, ca. 1350–1450. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, 2000.27.
2. Pitcher, lead-glazed earthenware, thirteenth to fourteenth century.
3. Pitcher, lead-glazed earthenware. Probably Cheam, Surrey, fifteenth century.
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.
Richard Hovey, A Stein Song, 1898
In England the transition from the use of wood, horn, and leather drinking vessels to ceramic forms took far longer than one would expect. As with so many English innovations, when the change began it came from Europe, specifically from the German Rhineland. Potters there had been experimenting with salt-glazed stoneware, favored for its durability and liquid-imperviousness, since the thirteenth century. By the end of the fifteenth century these easily cleaned beer mugs were mass-produced in centers such as Siegburg and Raeren.
At first the preferred shapes were somewhat eccentric, like the funnel-mouthed form being made in an image of about 1455 (to your left). Stonewares in this style (1) were widely used in England, as evidenced by an earthenware version made in Surrey around 1540 (2). Most German beer mugs from the first half of the sixteenth century were more practical and far less elegant (3 and 4). Potters working in the London area did their best to copy these forms in lead-glazed earthenware (5).
1. Jug or mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Siegburg, Germany, ca. 1475–1525.
2. Jug or mug, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1550–1580.
3. Mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Sieburg or Raeren, Germany, ca. 1475–1550.
4. Mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Raeren, Germany, ca. 1500–1550.
5. Mug, lead-glazed earthenware. London area, ca. 1540–1560.
In her days every man shall eat in safety.
Archbishop Cranmer at the christening of the future Queen Elizabeth William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, 1613
Men and women in Elizabethan England also began to eat from more colorful and shapely pottery than ever before. Candle-sticks, moneyboxes, charcoal-fueled chafing dishes, condiment dishes, and even chamber pots all were made increasingly pleasing to the eye. These more delicately potted wares often featured brilliant green and yellow glazes, which subsequently became the dinner table colors of the Elizabethan Age.
1. Brazier, lead-glazed red ware. London, ca. 1540.
2. Jug, buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1550–1600.
3. Porringer, lead-glazed red ware. London, ca. 1500–1550.
4. Moneybox, green-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1560–1610.
5. Serving dish, green-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1559–1600.
6. Candle holder, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1600–1650.
7. Dish, green-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1550–1600.
8. Bowl, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca 1600–1640.
9. Chamber pot, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1620–1670.
10. Porringer, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1600–1670.
…take one half of good Kitchen-Garden-Earth, a quarter part of Mould and a quarter part of Rubbish; mix the whole together, and fill your Boxes wherein to put your Olive Plants therewith.
M. Chomel, Dictionaire Oeconomique, 1725 edition
Despite such explicit instructions, growing olive trees in England was difficult. It was much easier to import one’s olive oil from Spain or Italy—as Monsieur Chomel went on to explain. The shapes and varieties of these jars and flasks are typical of those in which olive oil was imported into England and America in the seventeenth century. The first three examples are probably from Seville. One of these (3) is adorned with colored crosses, which have yet to be explained, and also displays the carved initials of its owner.
The fourth flask shown here (4) was made in the vicinity of Pisa in the second quarter of the seventeenth century.
Although of superior quality, such decorative wares were widely exported to Europe and America. Fitted with lionesque handle loops for suspension from a cord, the red body is coated with a marbleized white slip under a clear lead glaze.
1. Jar, earthenware. Seville, Spain, ca. seventeenth century.
2. Jar, earthenware. Seville, Spain, ca. seventeenth century.
3. Flask, earthenware. Marked IE. Seville, Spain, ca. seventeenth century.
4. Flask, lead-glazed earthenware. Vicinity of Pisa, Italy, second quarter of the seventeenth century.
The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one.
George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, 1640
The pots shown here demonstrate the time-honored collector’s adage: If something looks too good to be true it probably is. The two lidless Rhenish vessels on the left were in common use in England between about 1590 and 1640. Their straight necks were well suited to be enriched with silver or silver-gilt mounts and lids. The jug to the right (3) has such enhancements, but a Chester (England) hallmark for 1911 leaves no doubt that the mounts are reproductions. When the piece came up for auction several years ago the stoneware jug was said to be from the seventeenth century. Only later did the Noël Humes discover that it too was made in the early twentieth century.
Among the signs of the jug’s recent vintage is its salt-glazed surface, which is too even and perfect. Another telltale detail is that it lacks the sharply defined ridge that separates neck from body on the original Rhenish examples. This copy is believed to have been made by the Doulton manufactory, in its Lambeth or Burslem factory, the latter located near Chester where the jug’s “Elizabethan” silver mounts were added.
1. Jug, salt-glazed stoneware. Rhineland, Germany, ca. 1590–1640.
2. Jug, salt-glazed stoneware. Rhineland, Germany, ca. 1590–1560.
3. Jug, salt-glazed stoneware with silver mounts. Jug made by Doulton, Lambeth or Burslem, ca. 1911. Silver mounts made in Chester, 1911.
GREY BEARD: Earthen jugs formerly used in public houses for drawing ale: they had the figure of a man with a large beard stamped on them.
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811
Long known as Bellarmines and more recently as Bartmanns, Gray Beard bottles were being imported from Germany into England by the last quarter of the sixteenth century and were still arriving via Flanders as late as 1776. Gray Beards, characterized by their distinctive masks and many without, were the principal containers for bottled ale and wines until the development of a glass bottle industry in the mid-seventeenth century. Pint and quart sizes were the first to be replaced by glass, but the larger stoneware bottles were stronger than their glass counterparts and therefore retained their market share throughout much of the eighteenth century.
The bottles shown here suggest the range of available sizes. Neither piece can claim to portray the best of the Rhineland potters’ art, the finest examples of which dated to the second half of the sixteenth century before the mass- production of bottles began. Nevertheless, the multi-medallioned Gray Beard on the right has its place in the record books as arguably the largest surviving example of its period.
1. Gray Beard jug, salt-glazed stoneware. Frechen, Germany, ca. 1640.
2. Gray Beard jug, salt-glazed stoneware. Frechen, Germany, ca. 1630–1660.
…Making Vessels for Apothecaries and others very artificially.
John Stowe, A Survey of London, 1633 ed.
Immigrant Dutch potters began making delftware in the London area in 1570, but after 1614, the principal area of production lay across the Thames River in the notorious Borough of Southwark. By the end of the century, the craft had spread westward to Vauxhall and Lambeth where production continued for another hundred years.
Known in the seventeenth century as galleyware, the thickly white-glazed earthenware required two firings, the first at a high temperature to create the stage defined as biscuit (1 and 2). It was then coated with a lead glaze, made white and opaque by the addition of tin, and hand-painted before being fired again at a lower temperature.
Although all surviving delftware from the first years of production is painted in one or more colors (3, 4 and 5), by about 1630, utility wares were being sold unpainted. These ranged from ointment jars to caudle pots and later to washbasins and chamber pots, whose production continued to the end of the eighteenth century.
1. Mug, biscuit-fired earthenware. Southwark, ca. 1630–1660.
2. Salt, biscuit-fired earthenware. Southwark, ca. 1630–1660.
3. Apothecary pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1620–1640.
4. Apothecary pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1620–1640.
5. Charger, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640–1660.
6. Caudle or posset pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640–1660. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.74, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
7. Ointment pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640 – 1700.
8. Ointment pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640 – 1700.
9. Ointment pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640 – 1700.
10. Ointment pot, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1640 – 1700.
11. Dish, cobalt-decorated delftware. Possibly Vauxhall, ca. 1680–1690.
12. Vase, delftware. England or the Netherlands, ca. 1680.
13. Chamber pot, delftware. Probably Lambeth, ca. 1690–1720.
When Adam delved and Eve span who was then a gentleman?
John Ball, in speech to rebels,1381
The Biblical scene of “The Fall” is often found on large English delftware dishes also known as chargers. The story of these two examples’ entry into the Noël Hume collection stretches credulity. Illustrated as the classic early and late Adam and Eve chargers in Bernard Rackham’s and Herbert Read’s English Pottery (1924), they were then part of the W. H. Beaumont Collection. In 1931, in the depths of the Great Depression, they were sent to auction but failed to find a buyer. They then vanished until 1965 when the Noël Humes found one in a provincial English antique shop. Two days later the other was discovered in a London street market and purchased by a friend of the Noël Humes. The chargers were reunited in 1998.
1. Charger, delftware. Southwark, ca. 1635–1645.
2. Charger, delftware. Bristol, ca. 1680–1710.
My squirrel with his tail curved up like half a silver lyre.
Winifred Welles, Silver for Midas, 1893–1939
While working at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1960s, the Noël Humes discovered fragments of English delft dinnerware that featured a delightful squirrel design. Originally these were used by the eighteenth-century Williamsburg, Virginia, tavern-keeper Anthony Hay. The fragments prompted the purchase of a matching plate (1). Believed to have been made at Lambeth in London around 1750, the plate was later joined in the Noël Hume collection by two larger Bristol dishes (2 and 3) that date about fifteen years earlier. Colonial Williamsburg was so taken by the squirrel design that it soon began to use the pattern on restaurant china at Campbell’s Tavern. The ashtray (4) is one such piece. This example was properly acquired by the Noël Humes, but many others disappeared into the pockets and purses of over-admiring patrons.
1. Plate, delftware. Lambeth, ca. 1750.
2. Dish, delftware. Bristol, ca. 1735–1745.
3. Dish, delftware. Bristol, ca. 1735–1740.
4. Ashtray, white ware. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Williamsburg, VA, 1985.
Showing the possibility and fitness of uniting the best class of design with the cheapest
material and in objects of constant popular use.
One of several reasons cited in 1868 for the Victoria and Albert Museum purchasing German stoneware
Both brown and blue-on-gray stonewares from the Rhineland were in general use in England and her American colonies by the early seventeenth century and would continue
to be imported as late as 1776. These were decorated with cobalt (blue) and sometimes manganese (purple). Such wares, first imported from Raeren and then from the Westerwald district, became a staple of British households and taverns—in spite of growing competition from English stoneware potters from the 1680s onward.
The lidded drinking vessel (1) is dated 1585, and the chamber pot (2) is dated 1632—the earliest example of the form yet recorded. The large ale jug (6) and the tavern mug (7), decorated with the ciphers of George I and George II, are typical of the German export trade in the first half of the eighteenth century. The small chamber pot (9), with its original brass lid, was unearthed in Amsterdam. It is the smallest Rhenish example the Noël Humes had seen and may be the smallest known.
1. Drinking vessel, stoneware. Raeren or Westerwald, Germany, dated 1585 (or 1587).
2. Chamber pot, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, dated 1632.
3. Quatern or gill measure, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1630–1660.
4. Mug or gorge, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1680–1700.
5. Jug, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1680–1700.
6. Jug, stoneware. Marked GR (George Rex, or King George). Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1725–1750.
7. Mug, stoneware. Marked GR. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1714–1740.
8. Bottle, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1710–1760.
9. Chamber pot with original brass lid, stoneware. Westerwald, Germany, ca. 1750
An honest Vicker, and a kind consort,/ That to the alehouse friendly would resort,/ To have a game at Tables now and then,/ Or drinke his pot, as soone as any man.
Humors Ordinarie, 1607
The alehouse tankard, of pint or quart size in the seventeenth century, was made appreciably larger in the eighteenth century when more durable English brown stonewares became available. Hitherto, large drinking vessels had been made of pewter, which was expensive, or pitch-coated leather, which was hard to keep clean.
Because they were decorated and often dated, many eighteenth-century large tavern tankards have survived, whereas the smaller unadorned sizes have not. Many of the big tankards bear the names of the inns and taverns for which they were made. Until about 1750, inscriptions were incised by hand (2 and 3), but thereafter they were stamped with printer’s type (4).
The earliest English stoneware tankard in the Noël Hume Collection is thought to have been made at Vauxhall around 1715 (1), and the latest perhaps at Fulham forty years thereafter (5). This last was made for the English East India Company ship Calcutta, which was victorious in a fierce sea battle with the Dutch near India in 1758.
1. Tankard, salt-glazed stoneware. Probably Vauxhall, ca. 1715.
2. Tankard decorated with a version of William Hogarth’s Midnight Modern Conversation, salt-glazed stoneware. Inscribed John Sargent 1737. London, 1737.
3. Tankard, salt-glazed stoneware. Inscribed William Cheater 1722. London, 1722.
4. Tankard decorated with The Punch Party, salt-glazed stoneware. Type-stamped Wm Newman/Sarum. London, ca. 1760.
5. Tankard with brass rim, salt-glazed stoneware. Type- stamped Calcutta. London, ca. 1755–1760.
…this kind of ware was much in request about 1740.
Josiah Wedgwood, Commonplace Book, January 15, 1765
Actually, Wedgwood was wrong. Despite the pronouncement of the great eighteenth-century potter and entrepreneur, white salt-glazed stoneware had been “in request” since about 1710 and would continue to be so into the 1780s. Less readily chipped and scratched than delftware, it became a staple of the middle-class English home as its quality improved and more elaborate slip-cast shapes became available (1 and 2). When the public tired of its whiteness, cobalt-filled designs were scratched onto its sides (4). Eventually, as creamware ousted stoneware from the family table, stoneware potters shifted to producing not-so-good variants on blue-on-gray imports from Germany (6 and 7).
1. Salt, slip-cast salt-glazed white stoneware, ca. 1745–1755.
2. Teapot, slip-cast salt-glazed white stoneware, ca. 1745–1760.
3. Dinner plate, press-molded salt-glazed white stoneware, ca. 1755.
4. Tea caddy, salt-glazed white stoneware, ca. 1760–1775.
5. Chamber pot, salt-glazed white stoneware, ca. 1750–1775.
6. Mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Marked GR, ca. 1775–1800.
7. Jug, salt-glazed stoneware. Marked GR, ca. 1775–1800.
In 1763 Mr. Josiah Wedgwood...invented a species of earthen ware, for the table, quite new in its appearance, covered with a rich and brilliant glaze... manufactured with ease and expedition, and consequently cheap.
Josiah Wedgwood, quoted in an article published in 1789
In fact, Wedgwood’s self-promotional claim to have invented the cream-colored earthenware, now known as “creamware,” was several fences shy of the truth. Attempts to fire the white salt-glaze clays at a lower temperature and to coat them with yellowing lead glaze had been going on among Staffordshire potters since the 1740s. It was true, nonetheless, that Wedgwood’s salesmanship won him royal patronage and lasting recognition as the creator of what he renamed “Queen’s Ware.”
Nine-tenths of the creamwares produced by Wedgwood and others were undecorated save for their molded rims. But these hold little interest for collectors. More desirable are the hand-painted or transfer-printed examples.
1. Tea bowl and saucer, creamware. Inscribed Anne Boucant Page. Staffordshire, ca. 1770.
2. Plate, creamware. Mark illegible. Staffordshire, ca. 1770–1780.
3. Tankard, creamware. Leeds, ca. 1775–1785.
4. Teapot, creamware. Staffordshire, ca. 1775–1785.
5. Teacup and saucer, creamware. Leeds, ca. 1775–1785.
6. Waste bowl, creamware. Leeds, ca. 1775–1785.
7. Child’s tea bowl, creamware. Printed design attributed to Robert Hancock of Worcester. Staffordshire, ca. 1780–1790.
…the signal has been made that the enemy’s combined fleet are coming out of Port. We have very little wind…
Admiral Nelson to Emma Hamilton, October 19, 1805.
The death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar was one of the defining moments in British history, and potters were quick to feed the public’s desire to remember the historic event. But as so often is the case, the manufacturers’ impulse was as exploitative as it was patriotic.
Admiral Vernon’s 1739 attack on Porto Bello in Spain (1) was the first British victory to be commemorated by souvenir ceramics. There would not be another until 1782 when Admiral Rodney routed the French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes. Coming as it did on the heels of Britain’s defeat in America, that success was particularly sweet and generated ceramic souvenirs as never before (2 to 5). The subsequent battles of St. Vincent in 1797 (6), the Nile in 1798 (7), and Trafalgar in 1805 (8 and 9) all ended in memorable victories, but Nelson was to be the last of the superstar heroes commemorated in clay.
1. Bowl, red-bodied earthenware. Attributed to Thomas Asbury, England, ca. 1740. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.46, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
2. Loving cup, red ware. Possibly Bell Pottery, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ca. 1782–1784.
3. Figure of Lord Rodney, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1782–1784.
4. Teapot, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1782–1784.
5. Portrait pitcher of Lord Rodney, slip-cast pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1782–1784.
6. Pitcher, slip-cast unglazed stoneware. Probably Castleford, Yorkshire, ca. 1797–1800. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.47, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
7. Pitcher, slip-cast pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1798–1800. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.43, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
8. Pitcher, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1805–1810. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.45, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
9. Jug, brown stoneware. Lambeth or Fulham, ca. 1805–1810.
’Tis strange but true; for truth is always strange—Stranger than fiction.
Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1823
Now and again one comes upon pots with strange tales to tell. A pearlware loving cup made for John and Lydia Vickers in 1787 is such an example (4). The Picasso-like figure on the back appears to resemble a female space alien whose flying saucer has landed in a swamp. It turns out, however, that this is a copy in pearlware of an earlier Longton Hall porcelain design known to collectors as the “wind-swept” pattern (3).
The Bow porcelain tea bowl (2), decorated in overglaze enamels and made for Anne Target in 1754, is distinguished by its bizarre recent history. A friend of the Noël Humes discovered it being used ignobly as an ashtray in Williamsburg in 1958. Sometime later, collector Clifford Larson acquired a matching “Anne Target 1754” milk jug in a mid-western antique shop. He expressed the hope that one day the two pieces would be reunited (1). Thanks to Dr. Larson’s widow, his wish has now been fulfilled.
1. Milk pitcher, porcelain. Inscribed Anne Target 1754. Bow, 1754. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, 2001.39.
2. Tea bowl, porcelain. Inscribed Anne Target 1754. Bow, 1754. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2001.45, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
3. Sauce boat, porcelain. Longton Hall, ca. 1750–1760. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, 2000.55.
4. Loving cup, pearlware. Inscribed John & Lydia Vickers 1787. Stafordshire or Leeds, 1787.
From the moment a finer ware than the Cream-colour is shown at our Rooms, the sale of the latter will in a great measure be over there.
Josiah Wedgwood to his partner Thomas Bentley, December 31, 1775
Although Wedgwood would continue experimenting with a whiter ware, his competitors were more aggressive, and by 1780 a new product known today as pearlware was in production under the generic name “china glaze.” It came as close to being porcelain as one could get without being translucent; in addition to being difficult to achieve, translucency was the exclusive province of those entrepreneurs who held the patents for the manufacture of porcelain.
Arguably the earliest dated example of pearlware is the 1780 loving cup shown here (1). Among other dated pearlware in the Noël Hume Collection is an ale jug (6) made to wet the whistles of potential voters in favor of Messrs. Pocock and Allen who in 1802 ran for re-election to Parliament for Bridgewater, Somerset. Thanks no doubt to the beer-befuddled electorate, Pocock and Allen won.
Brown-slipped Chinese porcelain known as Batavia Ware was a popular import in the mid-eighteenth century. Pearlware potters tried to copy its appearance but without conspicuous success (7). The last example (8), made around 1845, serves as a reminder that pearlware would outlast creamware as a base for transfer-printed decoration well into the nineteenth century.
1. Loving cup, pearlware. Marked Ralph Vernon, 1780. Staffordshire, 1780. Lent by the Chipstone Foundation, NH2000.38, gift of Carol and Ivor Noël Hume.
2. Fruit bowl, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1785–1805.
3. Coffee pot, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1795–1820.
4. Dinner plate, “Willow Pattern” pearlware. Marked Dillwyn & Co. Swansea, ca. 1811–1818.
5. Dish, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1790.
6. Jug, pearlware. Made for James Pocock and Jeffreys Allen. Probably Swansea, dated 1802.
7. Pitcher, “Batavia” style pearlware. ca. 1780–1790.
8. Milk pitcher, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1840–1850.
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb/ Like the sun, it shines everywhere.
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, III.1.44, 1601
They say there is no fool like an old fool. But the fools who spilled their liquor while trying to figure out which spouts to close on a puzzle jug had to shoulder the idiocy of the ages. The trick—which lay in sealing a hole under the handle—went back at least to the sixteenth century and was still being played in the nineteenth century.
The brown stoneware puzzle jugs here (1 and 2) both date to the first half of the nineteenth century. Their pearlware companion (3), made for John Bloome, has but one spout thereby reducing the trick to its simplest. To it is added a portrayal of the good ship Hopewell, but instead of the usual female or noble beast figurehead, she sails behind the carefully painted head of a jackass! Was this a gift from Mrs. Bloome who considered her husband a simpleton to sink their savings into the Hopewell?
1. Puzzle jug, brown stoneware. Marked Stanley/1820. Probably Derbyshire, 1820.
2. Puzzle jug, brown stoneware. Probably Brampton, Derbyshire,ca. 1835.
3. Puzzle jug, pearlware. Made for John Bloome. Probably Yorkshire, ca. 1790–1805.
...this destructive and poisonous liquid.
John Ireland, Hogarth Illustrated, Vol. II, 1791
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London gin was both the solace and the damnation of the poor. Known as Mother’s Ruin and Strip-me-naked, it defied several official acts to curb its sale. An Act of Parliament in 1830 to encourage the sale of beer had the unintended effect of increasing the distilling of bootleg gin. That date also marked the advent of appealing, take-home gin bottles made of brown stoneware. The trade lasted from about 1830 to 1856 with the greatest output between 1837 and 1845.
The earliest example in the collection (1) predates the rest by forty years and has its mob-capped profiles separately applied. Beginning around 1830, portrait bottles of political figures (2), theatrical personalities such as American “black face” comedian Thomas Dartmouth Rice (3), and numerous familiar objects from books (6) to pistols (8) were all cast in two-piece molds.
1. Pocket flask, applied female profile on both sides, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth or Fulham, ca. 1790.
2. Flask in the shape of Lord Grey, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, ca. 1832.
3. Pocket flask, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, ca. 1836.
4. Flask in the shape of a tipstaff, salt-glazed stoneware. Impressed Stephen Green Imperial Potteries Lambeth. ca. 1837.
5. Flask in the shape of a hump-backed woman, possibly Mrs. Punch, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, ca. 1836–1845.
6. Flask in the shape of a book, salt-glazed stoneware. Probably Lambeth, ca. 1840.
7. Stirrup cup flask, salt-glazed stoneware. Impressed Stephen Green Imperial Potteries Lambeth. ca. 1840.
8. Flask in the shape of a percussion lock pistol, salt-glazed stoneware. Impressed J. Bourne Denby Pottery Derbyshire. ca. 1840.
I replaced my Crown, took the Orb in my left hand and the Sceptre in my right, and thus loaded proceeded through the Abbey.
Queen Victoria on her Coronation, Journal, June 28, 1838
With Queen Victoria’s accession in June, 1837, the stoneware gin-flask potters of Lambeth set to work designing a wide variety of portrait bottles of the young Queen and of her family. The gray figures at the back of this group (1 and 2) are believed to represent Victoria’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, the former long dead and the latter reduced to tears during the coronation. To their right (3) stands the towering figure of Prince Albert, whom Victoria would marry in 1840. The relatively large plinths or bases on which the figures stand may have been designed to receive paper labels.
1. Flask in the shape of Edward, Duke of Kent, salt-glazed white stoneware. Lambeth, 1837.
2. Flask in the shape of Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, Duchess of Kent, salt-glazed white stoneware. Lambeth, 1837.
3. Flask in the shape of Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Consort, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, 1840.
4. Flask in the shape of Queen Victoria, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, 1837.
5. Flask in the shape of Queen Victoria, salt-glazed stoneware. Lambeth, 1837.
6. Flask with the Queen’s arms incorrectly rendered on the back, salt-glazed stoneware. Marked on the base Published by S. Green Lambeth, July 20th 1837.
I expect he will be very trying when he is old.
Adeline Goss on her father, 1888
William Henry Goss (1833–1906) was the founder of the Falcon Works at Stoke-on-Trent and the inventor of the porcelain miniatures that came to be known as “heraldic china.” Specializing in reproductions of museum artifacts, William’s son Adolphus (1853–1934) developed a worldwide network of sales outlets, for which he made objects decorated with the badges of Harvard University (2), Florida (4), and New York (9). By 1914, however, other Staffordshire factories had entered the heraldic souvenir business and Goss’s revenues were in decline.
1. Bust of William Henry Goss, Parian ware. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1906.
2. Reproduction of a Bronze Age urn, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1910.
3. Reproduction of a fifteenth-century German stoneware “goblet,” porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1910.
4. Reproduction of a Bronze Age cup, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1903.
5. Miniature of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1912.
6. Cup, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1900.
7. Model of Wedgwood’s copy of the Portland Vase, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1895.
8. Vase, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1910.
9. Vase from Lincoln Cathedral, porcelain. Falcon Porcelain Factory, ca. 1910.
Our kings derive not their title from the people, but from God…it belongs not to subjects either to create or censure, but to honour and obey their sovereign.
Elders of Cambridge University on the Divine Right of Kings, 1681
The ancient notion of the divine right of kings was already beginning to be questioned when the Cambridge professors claimed otherwise. By the time the British had been through four Georges and two Williams, the concept was obsolete. Even during the outwardly glorious reign of Queen Victoria, anti-royalist muttering was regularly heard in the halls of power.
The twentieth century began with the death of Victoria and ended on the eve of another Queen’s hundredth birthday. The series of commemorative mugs spanning those years did for them precisely what the Porto Bello bowls, Nelson mugs, and Caroline pitchers had done for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Like a miniature chamber pot in the Noël Hume collection, they cried “Remember me, when this you see.”
A faded black ribbon around the mug made to commemorate Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1895 speaks eloquently of a nation’s sorrow at her death in 1901 (2). Mugs prematurely made to herald the crowning of Edward VIII in 1937 went begging when he quit to marry a Baltimore belle, but they were said to have sold well in the West Indies where the difference between Edward and his brother George could pass unnoticed (7 and 8). George, Duke of York, and his wife Elizabeth would do much to restore faith in the monarchy. In 1939 their visit to the United States helped prepare the two nations for partnership in World War II (10).
The accession of the young Elizabeth II following her father’s early death in 1952 found her realm struggling to maintain a place at the high table of a changing world (11). Alas, the lives of her children and their spouses would bring more sorrow than joy to the House of Windsor (13 and 14). But that is a story for future pottery collectors to tell.
1. Mug commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, creamware. 1897.
2. Mug commemorating the Diamond Jubilee, white ware. A mourning ribbon was added in 1901. 1897.
3. Mug depicting the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, bone china. Royal Doulton, 1902.
4. Mug depicting the coronation of George V and Queen Mary, white ware. Made for Harrods Ltd., 1911.
5. Coffee cup commemorating George V and Queen Mary’s silver jubilee, white ware. 1935.
6. Egg cup commemorating George VI and Queen Mary’s silver jubilee, white ware. 1935.
7. Beaker commemorating Edward VIII’s expected coronation, white ware. British Anchor, 1937.
8. Mug commemorating Edward VIII’s expected coronation, white ware. Royal Doulton, 1937.
9. Mug commemorating George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, white ware. Pountney, Bristol, 1937.
10. Plate commemorating the visit of George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the United States, white ware. John Maddock & Sons, 1939.
11. Mug commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, bone china. Aynsley, 1953.
12. Mug commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s sixty-fifth birthday, bone china. Aynsley, 1991.
13. Mug and lid commemorating the marriage of Charles Prince of Wales and Diana Spencer, white ware. 1981.
14. Mug commemorating the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, white ware. Prince William Pottery Co., 1986.
15. Pin box commemorating the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, bone china. Royal Crown Duchy, 2000.
If she was disfigured with wounds and bruises in the combat, they were all in front: if her shield be battered, it is yet resplendent.
Charles Mayo, Universal History, Vol. IV, 1804
The treaty signed at Amiens in 1802 brought the first Napoleonic War to an end. The peace was destined not to last, but at the time, national pride coupled with relief swept England. With her shield dented but her spear unbroken, Britannia was the toast of taverns and the delight of the tea table. She and the trappings of victory graced a wide range of pearlwares from dessert plates and teapots to ale pitchers and punchbowls.
A year later England and France would again be at war. Nelson defeated Napoleon at Trafalgar, but it would take Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815, to finally rid Europe of the despotic genius whom the British derisively called “the little corporal.”
1. Pitcher, pearlware. Inscribed May balmy peace/And wreath’d renown/Our Virtuous Heroes Ever crown. Staffordshire, ca. 1802.
2–6. Tea service, pearlware. Staffordshire, ca. 1802–1803.
7. Dessert plate, pearlware. Impressed IH, probably for Joshua Heath of Hanley. Staffordshire, ca. 1802–1803.
This two-tone earthenware beaker is close on 6,000 years old. It was made in the Badarian era (ca. 4000-3400 B.C.) and was shaped by hand. The potter’s wheel had yet to be invented. The pot was fired upside down in an open fire, and its interior, as well as the rim’s exterior buried in the hot ashes, were denied oxygen and so turned black. The outside base and sides, which were exposed to the air, burned red. The knowledge that color could be deliberately controlled in this way would be exploited by Josiah Wedgwood some 5,750 years later when he made his red “rosso antico” and “black basaltes” wares.
1. Beaker, earthenware. Egypt, ca. 4000–3400 B.C.