1. Unaware that the 1842 jug would later be dwarfed by another, I felt comfortable in referring to it as massive. Indeed, a two-gallon pitcher is undeniably larger than most beer jugs. A long ode entitled “The Praise of Yorkshire Ale,” probably from the late eighteenth century, contains the following lines: “This moved Bacchus presently to call / For a great Jug which held above five Quarts, / And fillng ’t to the Brim. . . .” Quoted in André Louis Simon, Drink (London: Burke Publishing Co., 1948), p. 165. 2. All references to the jug’s front or back refer to left or right of the held handle—remembering always, of course, that no antique ceramic vessel should ever be held by its handle! 3. Llewellynn Jewitt, The History of Ceramic Art in Great Britain: From Pre-Historic Times down through Each Successive Period to the Present Day..., 2 vols. (New York: Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong, 1878). 4. Frank Sharman, “Bilston and Bradley Potteries,” available at www.localhistory.scit.wlv. ac.uk/ BCMC/pottery/pottery01.htm (accessed July 12, 2005). 5. Research by the Wolverhampton Museum’s Francesca Cambridge suggests that there was a glass factory at Bradley in the late seventeenth century. As such an operation would have required siege pots (crucibles), it is reasonable to deduce that the ceramic side of the glasshouse would provide the continuum to locate a ceramic manufactory there in the eighteenth century. There is some evidence that in the 1760s the area became known as Glassborough. An advertisement published in the Birmingham Gazette, April 12, 1762, showed that on April 12 the glasshouse was to be sold, its assets then including “about 100 pots.” 6. This jug is illustrated in Adrian Oswald, R. J. C. Hildyard, and R. G. Hughes, English Brown Stoneware, 1670–1900 (London: Faber and Faber, 1982), pp. 196–99. Also pictured is an unmarked brown stoneware money box “reputedly made in Bilston.” 7. These separately attached spouts are sometimes referred to as “snips,” the V to insert them having been snipped out of the mouth when the clay was still in the plastic state. The specialists who applied handles and spouts were known as stoukers. See John Thomas, The Rise of the Staffordshire Potteries (Bath, Eng.: Adams and Dart, 1971), p. 6. 8. U.K. Public Record Office Ref.: RG11, Piece/Folio 3060.81, p. 35. 9. Kenneth Stanley Green, “The History of T. G. Green Pottery, 1790–2000,” available online at www.zyworld.com/tggreen/Pottery%20History.htm (accessed August 12, 2005). Church Gresley marriage records show that there were twenty potters in the parish in 1841– 1845, seven in 1860, and ten in 1861–65, many of them following in their fathers’ craft. Overall these numbers suggest a declining business at Henry Wileman’s factory toward the end of his ownership. 10. There being no references to Robert Bew as a Bradley pottery owner after 1851, it is possible that John Bacon left at the same time. On the other hand, if he had previously worked for the Myatts, John Myatt’s return could have been reason enough to stay on, at least through the transition. 11. The village is spelled “Aueley” on John Speed’s 1610 maps of Shropshire and Staffordshire, but elsewhere on the maps he used u and v interchangeably. 12. Townsend Farm stands adjacent to Hall Close Farm and has extensive quarries, or borrow pits, immediately to the east of it. The will was transcribed by Margaret Sheridan in September 2004. 13. Simeon Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries (1829; facsimile repr. Newton Abbott, Devonshire, Eng.: David and Charles, 1970), p. 99. 14. Ibid., p. 149. Bridgnorth was described as “a place of great trade both by land and water” and included three barge owners among its tradesmen; Universal British Directory of Trade Commerce, and Manufacture, 5 vols. (London, 1791–1798), vol. 5, appendix, pp. 30–33. Clays from the Shropshire Valley of the Severn had been centers of potting since the Roman era, and in 1790 china repairer John Lawrence was to be found at “the China Works near Bridgnorth.” Jewitt, History of Ceramic Art in Great Britain, vol. 2, p. 111. 15. A farm of the same name lies a short distance to the west, along what is presumed to have been the Potters Load road. 16. John Lewis and Griselda Lewis, Pratt Ware: English and Scottish Relief Decorated and Underglaze Coloured Earthenware, 1780–1840, rev. ed. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng.: Antique Collectors’ Club in association with Leo Kaplan Ltd., 1994), p. 193. 17. See Ivor Noël Hume, “A-Hunting We Will Go! From Vauxhall to Lambeth, 1700–1956,” Ceramics in America, edited by Robert Hunter (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 2004), p. 203, figs. 12b, c, g. So alike are they that it is reasonable to deduce that all six sprigs are derived from the work of a single master matrix maker. 18. For additional information, including images, go to http://potweb.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/ PotChron7-56.html (accessed July 12, 2005). 19. Ashmolean Museum, acc. no. 1971-203. I am indebted to Timothy Wilson of the Ashmolean Museum for this catalog information. 20. The basis for the Bristol identification rested on the evidence of two jugs, illustrated in Robin Hildyard’s Browne Muggs: English Brown Stoneware (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985), p. 80, nos. 204, 205, whose sprigs include the Bacon wheat sheaf, spade, plow, and harrow. The author identifies both as being from Bristol, ca. 1800, but offers no documentary evidence for either assertion. The illustrations are too poor to be sure that the tools are from Bradley molds, and the shapes (one pinched spouted and the other a puzzle jug) are unrelated to the few known Bradley forms. Although the master sprig molds could have been made and used at Bristol long before gravitating to Bradley, I am reluctant to preclude the possibility that both jugs are John Bacon products. Unfortunately, their whereabouts are unknown. 21. Personal communication, September 25, 2004. 22. As Frank Sharman has commented, “in 1840 the spelling of place names was not all that settled. What is now thought of as the correct spelling was often something which was gradually determined by the Ordnance Survey or the Post Office. And pronunciation is sometimes surprising: Bradley is pronounced Braydley!” Personal communication, July 19, 2004. 23. Trade directories in 1846 and 1849 list Maria Roberts as a butcher and victualler at the “Barrel Inn,” Bagworth. The 1851 census cites her as household head, aged sixty-two, and an innkeeper born in Bagworth. Her daughter, Maria, was unmarried, aged twenty-four, and also born in Bagworth. Her son, John Roberts, aged twenty-one, was listed as a butcher and presumably ran that side of the business. Also resident at the inn were two agricultural laborers and a visiting farmer’s son. This information was kindly supplied by Leicester Archives Assistant Lois Edwards. 24. The windmill on the Cockayne mug is entirely different, having away-facing sails and a tiered structure akin to another I have attributed, perhaps unwisely, to Mortlake or Lambeth. See Noël Hume, “A-Hunting We Will Go!” p. 234, fig. xii.8. 25. Thumb smearing can be seen at the left rim of the barrel in fig. 9, center. 26. Noël Hume, “A-Hunting We Will Go!” p. 207, fig. 15a, and p. 237, table xv.1. Jack Howarth and Robin Hildyard included a photograph of this jug in their recently published book Joseph Kishere and the Mortlake Potteries (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng.: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2004), p. 43, pl. 31. They have identified it as “Probably Mortlake,” although offer no support for their reasoning. 27. Noël Hume, “A-Hunting We Will Go!” p. 237, table xv. 28. “Around the Shows,” ABC, Antique Bottle Collector, UK 23 (2005): 36, ill. 29. This sprig was used by several factories.