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.
3. Model of an ambulance, porcelain. Marked as a gift to the war effort by the Staffordshire China Operatives. Grafton China.
2. Figure of a London bus as a troop transporter, porcelain. Carlton China, Stoke-on-Trent.
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 and 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.
