Blue and White China

First of all, in our photos it looks less than blue. But it is! Honest!

Blue and White Poppy pattern china by T Till and Sons

We are looking at vegetable tureen and a serving plate. There is also a sauce boat.

Matching tureen and lid

This china carries this makers’ mark.

The makers’ mark

These items were made by T Till and Sons and the design was called Poppy. If you want to know more about these Staffordshire potters then visit the website at http://thomastillandsons.webs.com/

Now what makes these items so special to our museum in Market Lavington?

The answer is simple. These items are the remains of a dinner service that belonged to Alf and Louisa Burbidge. Alf and Louisa lived in the cottage which is now our museum so these items are in their very rightful place.

In fact we have quite a full history of these items for when the Burbidges died the crockery went to Mrs Lily Gilbert. Lily was born a Shore and her brother had Married Flo Burbidge, the daughter of Alf and Louisa.

The items were given to the museum by Lily’s daughter, Mrs Clarke in 2001.

After fifty years, the Poppy china had come home. And you can see it now in the kitchen where once it would have been used by Louisa and her family.

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A Much Travelled Leaf

We have featured items which belonged to the Baker family before. John Baker was a tin smith and trader, living and working in the property opposite the Co-op and next to Woodland Yard. He and his wife raised a family there in Victorian times and this  leaf shaped dish was a part of their life in those late Victorian days.

This dish has travelled by land, sea and air from Market Lavington to Canada and back.

There is little to say about the dish. It is clearly leaf shaped and decorated in the blue and white style. The picture depicts a man with his dog. How the Baker family used it, we don’t know. Neither do we know anything regarding the manufacturer or the actual age of the dish. It’s a small dish – about 15 centimetres long.

But it was clearly valued. After John Baker died in 1903, some members of the family decided to emigrate to Canada and the dish went with them – in 1907.

Canada was where the dish stayed for the next 87 years. It was given to the museum in 1994 by a family member on a return visit to the old homeland.

As an interesting thought, when the Baker family emigrated, this dish would have travelled by train and ocean liner. On its return it travelled by aircraft and road transport. So the leaf is well travelled by variety as well as by distance.

By the way, our curator hates the springs and clips that have been used to mount this dish. This method of fastening can cause chipping to the vulnerable edge of china ware.  But it has been like it since 1994 and it may have been like it before – back in Canada. Any new donations of items like this will not be treated in this way, however.