XI

OLD ENGLISH EARTHENWARE[2]

It requires a word of apology for including the following “Chats” on earthenware in a volume bearing the title “Chats on English China,” but as the chief end of this little volume is to render to the beginner such aid as may be useful in the determination of the various classes of china, it was thought desirable in his interest to treat somewhat generally of earthenware in this and the succeeding chapters.

Earthenware suggests pots and pans, and the word is redolent of kitchen smells, but a Wedgwood teapot or a Toby jug, though earthenware they be, are worth the having. Pottery is the poor relation of porcelain. The one comes in silks and satins, in purple and fine linen; the other in cotton gown, like Phyllis at the fair.

The following remarks may lend a zest to dusting days, and, mayhap, the poor relation may be invited to come down from the top shelf in the kitchen to occupy a niche in the drawing-room.

It is to be hoped that what has already been said on china may have created a taste in the reader for the inventions of the potter. A blue bowl may convey a world of meaning, and may be fragrant with memories of the eighteenth century, if one cares to peer beneath the surface. To the uninitiated it will be a blue bowl—and ugly maybe at that. To some the potter’s art is as dead a thing as was Nature’s message to Wordsworth’s insensate:—

That it is not always easy to determine where a piece of china may have come from we have already shown, even if it be “A Present from the Crystal Palace.” The ordinary mind may possibly imagine some hitherto unknown factory away at Sydenham, but the legend “Made in Germany” underneath instantly dispels that illusion.

It is necessary here to state that the world of bric-À-brac is divided into two parts—earthenware or pottery, and china or porcelain. All that is not earthenware is porcelain, and all that is not porcelain is earthenware. One may liken it to prose and poetry; what is not one must be the other, as Monsieur Jourdain discovered after he had spoken prose for forty years without knowing it. To continue the simile, some of Ruskin’s prose writings approach as near to poetry as do Wedgwood’s finer wares to porcelain.

Porcelain is produced by the artificial mixture of certain minerals known by their Chinese names of kaolin and petuntse, or their English ones of china-clay and felspar. The former is infusible under the greatest heat, the latter is not, but unites in a state of fusion with the china-clay, making a paste or “body,” which is hard, and, when broken, shows a smooth, vitreous fracture. Those who have attempted to mend old china must have noticed how different the broken surface is from that of pottery with its rougher edges.

Strictly speaking these “Chats” on earthenware ought to have appeared at the commencement of the volume, for earthenware comes first chronologically. In passing we will glance for a moment as to how porcelain came into Europe.

Porcelain was first invented by the Chinese some two centuries before Christ. It reached Europe as the Eastern civilisation penetrated to the west, and for hundreds of years vain attempts were made by potters to reproduce the fineness of porcelain with its beautiful glaze and hard paste. At Venice, at Florence, in France, and in Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an approximate success had been arrived at; soft paste had been developed to its furthest limit, but the real ingredients of the Chinese hard paste were unknown.

Accident, however, completed what centuries of industry had attempted. From perruque to porcelain seems a far cry, but the story is worth telling.

John Schnorr, an ironmaster, riding near Aue, observed that a soft earth adhered strongly to his horse’s hoofs. Considering that this earth might be used as a substitute for wheat flour as hair powder, he carried some away with him, and it was subsequently sold in large quantities for this purpose at Dresden, Leipsic, and other places. This kaolin (the base of hard paste) continued to be known as “Schnorr’s white earth.”

Johann Friedrich BÖttcher, chemist to the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, discovered the secret about 1709. One morning, on taking up his wig, he noticed it was much heavier than usual. He was informed by his valet that a new kind of hair-powder had been used. This was the ironmaster’s white earth. BÖttcher was convinced that he had discovered at last the base of porcelain.

This was the foundation of the manufacture of porcelain at Meissen, and the factory then established has supplied the world with Dresden china ever since.

So great was the secrecy at first, that BÖttcher and his assistants, when Charles XII. of Sweden invaded Saxony, were removed by the Elector for greater safety to the castle at KÖnigstein, where they were practically imprisoned. Even the clay was sealed up in barrels by dumb persons, and every workman was required to take a solemn oath not to reveal the secret. “Be silent unto death” was the motto of the establishment.

How the method of manufacture and the secrets of Meissen finally became known to other countries, and how manufactories came to be set up at Vienna and Petersburg, is one of the romances of trade.

So much for the early history of porcelain in Europe. During this period the art of the potter had not made very great progress in England. These “Chats” have shown of the heroic attempts to emulate the success of Meissen, but it was slow, uphill work to reach the heights of Worcester and of Derby in porcelain and of Wedgwood in earthenware.

Stoneware mugs were more in accordance with the taste of our forefathers than pewter pots for drinking purposes, a comparatively modern prejudice. A variety of mugs called Longbeards, largely imported from Low Countries, were in general use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at inns for serving all the customers. The name “Bellarmine” was sarcastically given them in reference to the cardinal most conspicuous in opposing the Reformed faith in the Netherlands, the potter representing, with grotesque art, his Eminence with short stature and rotund figure.

It is but a short step from the ware imported from the Low Countries to the pottery of Staffordshire. The celebrated pattern of the Toby jug is well known. Dickens, in “Barnaby Rudge,” makes Gabriel Varden ask Dolly to “put Toby this way.” Uncle Toby himself might have suggested the design, but it is said to be derived from one Toby Philpot, “a thirsty old soul as e’er drank a bottle or fathomed a bowl.” We give, from Mr. W. G. Honey’s collection at Cork, two fine specimens—one an old Staffordshire jug (10¹/₂ in. high), representing John Bull, and marked “I. W.”; the other, the well-known pattern of the Vicar and Moses (9¹/₄ in. high). This latter is the work of Ralph Wood, of Burslem, and was frequently reproduced by later potters. Both these pieces are blue and white.

Of Josiah Wedgwood, the English Palissy, we deal in a separate “Chat.”

A whole volume could be written about him and his work. His busts, magnificently produced in black basalt, his cameos and gems, with which the name of Flaxman must be coupled, his white terra-cotta, and his cream-coloured earthenware, known as Queen’s ware (first made for Queen Charlotte), may be ranked among the most important factors in the history and development of the potter’s art in England.

Of the most important of the other Staffordshire potters, perhaps the name of Spode is the best known. After 1798, Spode the younger commenced to make porcelain.

Concerning Liverpool, to which we devote a separate “Chat,” it seems remarkable to read that in 1754 the making of pottery was the staple manufacture of the city. “The blue and white earthenware almost vie with china,” so says an eighteenth-century journal.

John Sadler conceived the idea of transferring prints from copper on to pottery, and struck out a new line in printing on earthenware.

Another factory, called the “Herculaneum Pottery,” was started on the Mersey side by Messrs. Abbey and Graham in 1794. The making of china was started here in 1800.

About the end of the eighteenth century, a potter named Absolon had works at a place called “The Ovens” at Yarmouth. The work consisted of decorating the articles which were manufactured elsewhere, and very little more is known about it.

At Swansea both pottery and porcelain were made. In 1750 works were established, and in 1790 “Cambrian Pottery” became quite well known. In the early part of the next century a superior kind of ware, called “Opaque China,” was made.

Leeds pottery is well known. At one time it had quite an extensive Continental trade, and the pattern-book of the pottery was issued in several languages. Alas! now it is the French and the German and the Japanese pottery books that are issued in several languages.

It is largely cream-coloured ware and such articles as candlesticks, teapots, mustard-pots, cruet-stands, tea-canisters, and sugar-basins, with covers, together with the usual dinner and tea services, that were manufactured.

Bristol claims to have made pottery at a period as remote as Edward I. Wherever excavations have been made in the city, along the north bank of the river from Bristol Bridge to Redcliffe Pit, remains of pottery and shard heaps have been discovered.

Joseph Ring, in 1787, successfully imitated the Queen’s ware of Wedgwood and the best Staffordshire pottery. Ring’s cream-ware is thin and well made, the edges being remarkably sharp, and the fluted pieces very regular and well defined. It is generally yellower than either Wedgwood’s cream-ware or the Leeds pottery. Both of these have coloured bodies, but Ring’s Bristol ware has a white body, the yellow surface tint being obtained by means of a glaze.

The mugs and jugs of Newcastle and Sunderland are much sought after on account of their quaint inscriptions.

By kind permission, we reproduce some fine specimens of this ware from the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey, of Cork, which were on view at the Cork Exhibition. Many of these jugs have a frog in the interior of the vessel. As the liquor is drunk the creature appears to be leaping into the drinker’s mouth.

The mug in commemoration of the cast-iron bridge across the Wear bears the date 1793. We give three positions of the mug, and in the inverted one the frog can be plainly seen. On the reverse side are the following lines:—

The Sailor’s Tear.

Nottingham, too, has produced some excellent earthenware. Wrotham, in Kent, had an old-established factory. A dish in the British Museum is dated “Wrotham, 1699.”

London and its environs has given birth to several celebrated potteries. Fulham pottery has a worthy history. Letters patent were granted in 1671 to John Dwight, for the “misterie of transparent earthenware, commonly knowne by the names of porcelain or China and Persian ware, as alsoe the misterie of the stone ware, vulgarly called Cologne ware.” There was, too, a pottery at Mortlake. “Kishere, Mortlake,” is the mark generally used. Isleworth had a small factory at Railshead Creek, Isleworth. Much of the coarse pottery made here was known as “Welsh ware.”

Lambeth pottery is well known, the art productions of Messrs. Doulton having done much to popularise their ware. In the middle of the seventeenth century certain Dutch potters settled at Lambeth, and made pottery tiles. Lambeth delft ware had quite a reputation in the eighteenth century.

Some particularly quaint devices appear on the old English jugs and mugs during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were used by the common people who could not afford silver and for whom glass was too expensive a luxury. They succeeded the old leathern jacks and leathern bottles, and played no inconspicuous part in social gatherings both at home and in alehouses. Many of the mugs have two (and sometimes as many as four) handles, which were made to supply the needs of several drinkers.

These English mugs possess little artistic merit, but they come as a very interesting link in the history of the manufacture of pottery in this country. One would have thought that the conquering Roman who settled in various colonies in our islands would have left some permanent mark on our pottery; that the Norman, who possessed some artistic skill, or peradventure the Spaniard who settled in the West in Armada days, would have taught the Anglo-Saxon a lesson in pottery; but it appears that the principles of art fell upon very stony ground in these islands.

In the national collection in the Bethnal Green Museum is a barrel-shaped mug (5¹/₂ inches high), which we reproduce; it is painted in blue with birds and flowers, and inscribed “William and Elizabeth Burges, 24th August, 1631.” This delft mug is believed to be of Lambeth manufacture.

A mug of elegant shape was quite recently dug up in some excavation near Bishopsgate Street, London, for the Great Eastern Railway extension. It bore the inscription—

and was dated 1650, which conjures up pictures of crop-eared ’prentice lads and mercers of busy Chepe, and junketings at the fair by London Bridge in days when train-bands and Ironsides were as integral a part of City history as were the C.I.V.’s of a year or so ago.

Brown and chocolate-coloured body with yellow dotted decorations is a very common form of this old English ware. A Posset Mug, dated 1697, bears the inscription: “The best is not too good for you”—evidently a present of some sort, although much of this class of ware was in common use in taverns, as the inscriptions go to show. We reproduce this dated Posset Mug in the accompanying illustration; next to it, on the lowest shelf, is an old Fuddling Cup. On the top shelf is a Cradle with incised decoration. The other cradle has slip decoration by Joseph Glass, 1703; while beside it is an old Posset Pot inscribed “God bless Queen Ann.” These specimens are reproduced by the kindness of Mr. S. G. Fenton, of Cranbourne Street, W.

Puzzle jugs were known in the time of Henry VIII. There is a puzzle jug at the Bethnal Green Museum, which was made by Mr. John Wedgwood, great-uncle to Joshua Wedgwood, and is dated 1691. The principle of the puzzle is that there are three spouts, each projecting from a tube which runs round the rim and down the handle to the bottom of the vessel. The top of the neck being perforated, it seems impossible to obtain any of the liquor without spilling it. The secret is to stop two of the spouts with the fingers while drinking at the third.

Other forms are the Tyg, a tall cup, with two or more handles, and decorated either with names or initials; and the Piggin, a small shallow vessel some few inches high, provided with a long handle, and used for ladling out the liquor brewed in the tyg. The doubled-handled tygs are generally called “parting-cups,” while those with more than two handles pass under the name of “loving-cups.” The word tyg comes from the Anglo-Saxon “tigel,” or tile, and survives in the word “tilewright” and other corruptions common in Staffordshire.

Some of the puzzle jugs bear interesting doggerel lines upon them. One runs—

Not a very good recommendation for a jug, but a very profitable alehouse amusement from mine host’s point of view.

Another bears the lines—

There is a very quaint inscription on a four-handled goblet, possibly a christening cup. It is dated 1692, and has the sides decorated with rough devices. Attached to one of the sides is a whistle; the mug has written upon it in atrocious spelling—

The orthography of potters in the age before School Boards is something to marvel at. Apparently the following is the gift of an amorous potter to his lady-love. I. W. has gone the way of all lovers, but the little mug he made for his sweetheart lies on the museum shelf, an object-lesson to all “golden lads and lasses” who, as Herrick’s fair daffodils, “haste away so soon.”

Dated 1707, in the days of the great Marlborough.

Some mugs have the precept, “Obeay the King,” while others bear the superscription, “Come let us drink to the pious memory of Good Queen Anne.” One or two utter the toast, “God Save King George.” A Gossip’s Bowl, dated 1726, has the couplet—

Another old mug, doubtless sent as a present, has the words—

There is one quaint piece of advice given to all lovers who wish for success in their love affairs. It is on a level with the Shakesperian methods adopted in the conquest of Kate in the “Taming of the Shrew”—

Some of the pronunciation is as curious as the spelling. We know Pope makes “tea” rhyme with “day,” as does the modern Irishman; but in the following lines “join” is evidently pronounced “jine”—

—an invitation issued to the frequenters of some inn where the brown jug bearing the inscription had an abiding place.

Another mug essays to point a moral while the toper is draining its contents. The potter who would strew his moral lessons in stoneware had about as much sense of the ludicrous as the gentleman who used to mark the London pavements with the text “Watch and Pray,” which he had printed in reverse on the soles of indiarubber shoes he would wear. On the bottom of a drinking mug the notion is quaint enough—

For our part, we prefer the following, which has a truer ring about it—

A large bowl of Bristol delft bears on it “Success to the British Arms.”

A fine breezy inscription, dated 1724, smacks of the hunting field. One can hear the rollicking voices of the eighteenth-century squires such as Randolph Caldecott loved to depict. Only two lines, but they ring in one’s ears as a message from the good old times—

Not classical English, perhaps, any more than that of the ladies from town who declare in the family circle of the Vicar of Wakefield that they are in a “muck-sweat.”

A set of six plates bear a line of the following inscription on each—

There is an exceedingly interesting Fulham ware flip mug, which bears an inscription on it showing that it once belonged to Alexander Selkirk, from whose adventures Defoe built up his story of “Robinson Crusoe.” Doubtless this mug accompanied the Scots sailor to the lonely island of Juan Fernandez when he set sail with the Cinque Ports galley—

which suggests that it may have been a parting present from one of his friends.

Jugs and mugs with portraits of Nelson are not uncommon. A quart jug in white ware with crimson border has a man-of-war in full sail on one side, and on the other a copy of West’s picture of the “Death of General Wolfe,” probably made by Thomas Wolfe, of Stoke-on-Trent, who was related to the general. On one mug is a view of the Thames Tunnel and a portrait of the engineer Brunel, to commemorate the opening in 1843. We give as a headpiece a Sunderland jug from Mr. Honey’s collection, having floral decorations in purple lustre, and having on one side a picture of the “Columbus, the largest ship ever built.” On the reverse side are two jolly tars, and the inscription runs—

Mugs seem to have in former days been manufactured to celebrate some political event or great victory. There were the coronation mugs of the present Czar of Russia, at the distribution of which so many peasants lost their lives. The Transvaal War produced no china mementoes. Mafeking buttons and ticklers are more representative of modern feeling.

To us these old English mugs are as the dry bones which, if one is only skilful enough magician, resolve themselves into dream-pictures, historically accurate enough, of our forbears of the eighteenth century. Our children’s children, when they come to examine our everyday ware, will find little else to observe save the legend “Made in Germany.”

The field of English earthenware is very large and very diverse. We have been prohibited by space from saying anything of salt-glaze ware, of Elers, or of Astbury, and we regretfully have to pass on without touching Leeds ware. But we give an interesting illustration of a group of Mason’s jugs of the celebrated “Patent Ironstone China.” The largest of these jugs is 9¹/₂ in. high. This is not a complete set, as the writer knows of the existence of a jug of smaller size, and another size between the second and third largest, which make a set of eight.

We give, too, a set of marks used by the firm of Mason, from the early days till the factory ceased. In the advertisement mentioned below he says, “The articles are stamped on the bottom of the large pieces to prevent imposition.”

Miles Mason established his pottery at Lane Delph, in Staffordshire, about 1780. “Miles Mason, late of Fenchurch St., London,” so runs his advertisement in the Morning Herald, October 1, 1804, “having been a principal purchaser of Indian porcelain, till the prohibition of that article by heavy duties, has established a manufactory at Lane Delph, near Newcastle-under-Lyme.” The “Ironstone China” was patented by Charles James Mason in 1813. It consisted in using the slag of ironstone pounded with water together with flint, Cornwall stone, and clay, and blue oxide of cobalt. The ware is usually outlined with flowers in transfer printing, and painted and gilded by hand. Some of Mason’s blue plates are in colour equal to old blue Delft. On account of its handsome decorative effect it is rapidly rising in value.

SALE PRICES.