King William IV and Queen Adelaide
William IV ascended the throne in 1830, and was crowned in September 1831. However, the items on this page relate to the Reform Act of 1832 with William referred to as 'The only Royal Reformer since Alfred'. William and Adelaide are found on jugs with transfers of other reformers, such as Earl Grey and Lord John Russell.
William IV ascended the throne in 1830, and was crowned in September 1831. However, the items on this page relate to the Reform Act of 1832 with William referred to as 'The only Royal Reformer since Alfred'. William and Adelaide are found on jugs with transfers of other reformers, such as Earl Grey and Lord John Russell.
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The William IV transfer on Sunderland items is after an engraving by J Rogers, shown near right. This image also was used by Staffordshire potters (see below).
The Tyneside transfers appear to be after an engraving (far right), which is after another by Edward Dawe, after a miniature by Charles Jagger in the Royal Collection. Again, this image appears on Staffordshire items. The Queen Adelaide transfers resemble a popular print by J Fairburn, which was likely drawn from another source. |
Photo from British Printed Pottery
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Photo National Trust Felbrigg Norfolk
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William the Fourth and Queen Adelaide – Sunderland Potteries
Attributed to A Scott & Sons, Southwick Pottery, Sunderland
William the IV and Queen Adelaide – Tyneside Potteries
Cornfoot, Colville & Co, Low Lights, North Shields
The C, C & Co impressed mark was likely used by both the Cornfoot, Colville & Co partnership (1828–1832) and the Cornfoot, Carr & Co partnership (1832–1838). Read more about the dates of the North Shields partnerships here.
The Newcastle Pottery, Skinnerburn / Forth Banks marked 'Tyne Pottery Newcastle'
R C Bell lists the partnerships at the Newcastle Pottery as Taylor & Son (1827–1829) and Redhead, Wilson & Co' (1833–1838). This jug, likely made in 1832, falls between those partnerships, so take your pick. See here, for two similar items marked 'Taylor & Co Tyne Pottery Newcastle'.
Unidentified Tyne pottery
These transfers come from the same as-yet-unidentified pottery that produced the jug, on the Brougham page, with the 'Here's Tom & Jerry' transfer.
Ian Holmes has noted the similarity of the handle decoration on this jug (below left) and the Tom and Jerry jug (below right) with Scott items (below centre). However, other elements of the enamelling are more similar to the 'Tyne Pottery' jug above, than anything that appears on Scott's Southwick Pottery items. Also, this transfer of William IV is the one associated with Tyneside. Similar arrangements of lustre marks appear on the handles of Redhead, Wilson & Co items from the Newcastle Pottery. So, on balance, I think this group is from Tyneside.
Another common element of the 'Tom & Jerry group' is the painting of small sprigs of pink lustre leaves around the transfer. The first two images below, from Lincoln Hallinan's book of British Commemoratives, show a mug with the same transfers as the jug above. The third, shows a mug with the transfer of Brougham that appears on the Tom & Jerry mug.
The Earl Grey transfer on this blue-collared jug is a good match with that on the mug above.
After flicking backwards and forwards between the images below, I believe that the Queen Adelaide on the blue-collared jug (below left) is also a match for this group. The right image is from the William & Adelaide jug above. The difficulty with comparing the imprints is they are on convex surfaces, and the transfer has creased in different places. On the first image, the crease runs through Adelaide's mouth on the left side, cutting off the uplift of her half smile. On the second image, the crease is to the right of her left eye, narrowing the gap between that eye and her nose.
King William the IV and Queen Adelaide – Staffordshire potteries
Chesworth and Robinson / Chetham and Robinson
The catalogue of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, describes the mug below as follows: This is one of three similar pink lustre mugs in the Fitzwilliam Collection. They have the same shape, similar decoration including the inscription ‘REFORM’, and the same mark, which is probably that of Chetham & Robinson, although a ‘C&R’mark was also used by a neighbouring pottery, Chesworth & Robinson. The engraved images on all three mugs are by ‘Kennedy’, probably James Kennedy of Burslem who made engravings and copper plates for factories as far afield as the Herculaneum Pottery in Liverpool. An engraved print held by the Stoke-on-Trent Museum indicates that the image may be based on a bust of King William IV sculpted by J. Rogers. [see below.]
Attributed to Chesworth and Robinson / Chetham and Robinson
Interestingly, the Tyneside version of William IV also appears to have been copied from Staffordshire items. Note that the subtitle 'The only Royal Reformer since Alfred' has been trimmed off on the mug below, so only the tops of the letters remain.
The flowers decorating these Staffordshire items have quite a different feel to those used on North East items.
