Crown Ducal Premier & Old Hall Ivory Ware shape

Not so much about Charlotte in this post. This article is about the Premier shape of tableware introduced in 1931 a year or two before Charlotte started work at A G Richardson and Co.

The Premier tableware shape received its review in the December 1931 edition of the Pottery Gazette. Many of the designs probably date back to earlier in that year because April 1931 is written in the front of the Crown Ducal book containing the earliest designs for the Premier shape. The spring of 1931 also tallies with the date for the registration number, 762055, found on the base of some items.



An example of the Premier style in design No90 with lithograph border overlaying the embossment and with orange enamelled edge

Like the Gainsborough and Florentine shapes that preceded it, the Premier shape includes an embossed design within the modelling, but the area of the embossment is much less than the other two tableware shapes. The Premier motif is a small linear grouping of fruits, flowers and leaves that mimics the curve of the adjacent scalloped rim of the ware. There are also modelled details on handles, knobs and sides of teapot spouts.

The exact layout of the Premier embossment depends on its size.

Left, large motif is 67mm tip to tip, on the right the smaller is 30mm across

To avoid confusion by using two names for the same thing, I will refer to the shape as “Premier” because that is the name used in the Crown Ducal documents of the period. But many items can be found with a backstamp with the words “Old Hall Ivory Ware” and this term is also used in the Pottery Gazette. My feeling is that Old Hall Ivory Ware was a name used by Richardsons to try and create a new brand name separate from Crown Ducal because there is no mention of A G Richardson and Co. or Crown Ducal in the backstamp. The Old Hall Ivory Ware back stamp seems to have only been applied to the Premier shape during the earliest years of production, (1931-1932), after this the company used whatever standard backstamp was applied to tableware at the time, with the exception of the Bristol pattern which usually had a special mark.

Searching on the internet with terms like “Old Hall” and “Bristol”, (Crown Ducals most popular pattern on the Premier shape), and “Asiatic Pheasants”, (the source design for Bristol); one will discover a lot of information about English transferware. This includes the fact that there was a company called The Old Hall Earthenware Co Ltd of Hanley that was producing the Asiatic Pheasants design long before Richardsons was in existence. There is clearly a link here between the use of the name and the Bristol pattern but I think I’ll leave that up to the experts on English transferware to unravel, or perhaps someone who knows will contact me with the real story.

One can understand why the designers at Richardsons would have liked the Premier shape. They had already discovered with the Gainsborough and Florentine shapes that they could be decorated in many ways. The body could be left undecorated and just glazed plainly to show off the embossment, usually with their ivory glaze. But mostly they were decorated with freehand enamels, prints, lithographs, gold printed borders and various combinations of these techniques. Furthermore the embossment gave opportunities for additional treatments such as picking out the detail of the embossment in freehand enamel, or having a transfer specially made to fit the embossment, which would save a lot of time in the decoration of the ware. With the smaller Premier embossment restricted close to the rims this enabled various lithograph borders to be manufactured, probably at a modest cost, yet still leaving large areas of the ware free for a wide variety of decorative treatments.

Anyone hoping for a nice simple catalogue of designs on the Premier shape is going to be disappointed. The early designs, those most likely to be associated with the Old Hall Ivory Ware backstamp, were produced in 1931 and 1932 and these predate the surviving pattern books with sequential Crown Ducal pattern numbers. There is an earlier document that begins with designs solely for the Premier shape. This starts at number 1 and gets to around 110 before being used for other purposes. Of the examples seen, only a few have either Crown Ducal or Premier pattern numbers. The best chance of finding a numbered pattern is if it is a freehand enamel design as it would have passed through the hands of a paintress and she might have numbered it as well as applying her own mark. Some popular lithograph designs had special numbered and named transfers applied in addition to the backstamp.

So putting it another way, there are about 110 early Premier designs recorded in a special book that dates from about April 1931 until mid summer 1932. Amongst them are virtually all of the commonly found designs on the Premier shape, including Bristol. But there are no conventional Crown Ducal pattern numbers. Once we get to May 1933, which is the beginning of the period covered by the surviving pattern books there are quite a few designs on Premier but none that were as popular as those from 1931/32. Also one needs to remember that these early designs may well have continued in production throughout the 1930s and beyond. Certainly Bristol was produced from 1931 until the 1960s.

The earliest design with a Crown Ducal pattern number determined by observation and matches the documentation is "Empire", which is No1 in the Premier list and pattern 2016 in the Crown Ducal sequence. There is a little uncertainty with this pairing as examples seen have an enamelled orange edge whereas the Premier book specifies a gold inner line, (at the verge). The same difference applies to No2 in the Premier list and pattern 2048, known as "Doris". So I believe that these were design changes once production had started.

The Pottery Gazette article of December 1931 has a picture of pattern 2060 and mentions that it was produced in four colours. It is a simple band and line enamel design with features of the embossment picked out out in freehand enamels. I have seen 2060 with a red band and line, 2061 has black, and 2063 has green, so I presume the blue version mentioned would be 2062. Mysteriously these designs are not in the Premier pattern book! Although there are similar ones in different colours.

Photograph of pattern 2060 in the Pottery Gazette of December 1931

 


Detail of pattern 2061

The named illustrated patterns in the same article are "Pinafore" and "Pasadena". Pinafore is design No3 in the Premier list and pattern 2107 in the Crown Ducal sequence. The small floral lithographs were made by the Universal Transfer Co. and may not be proprietary to Richardsons. But they were certainly a favourite as they were used on dozens of designs throughout the 1930s. Pasadena is design No4 in the Premier list and pattern 2137 in the Crown Ducal sequence. The floral and border lithographs were made, (presumably to Richardsons specifications to overlay the embossment), by the Rataud Transfer Co.



Photograph of pattern 2107 Pinafore and 2137 Pasadena  in thePottery Gazette of December 1931

There are not many Premier examples in my collection to photograph but if you search with Google Images for each of Crown Ducal Pinafore, Crown Ducal Pasadena, Crown Ducal Doris, Crown Ducal Empire, etc you will soon find examples.

The "Danube" lithograph was designed to cover the embossment like Pasadena and was also made by the Ratauds Transfer Co. The combination of border and floral spray, (design No5 in the Premier list), does not seem as common as Pasadena, but instead, the designers married the border of Danube with other lithographs and decorations. The image below is one of these and could be No55 in the Premier list. It is a combination of the Danube border with Pinafore sprays all over and with an orange edge.



Possibly design No55, Danube border with Pinafore spays

Bristol was one of the most popular of the Crown Ducal patterns, but I have yet to discover the pattern numbers for it. I presume because it is simply printed, it never passed through the hands of someone, like a gilder or enameller to put the number on it and being such as well know pattern it would just have been referred to as Bristol. The design date would have been in the summer of 1931.

The entries for Bristol in the Premier book listed together with the ceramic printing colours used are:

No24 printed in Old English Blue

No26 printed in Grey (Blythe 22)

No27 printed in Grey (Blythe ? not legible)

No28 printed in Blue-Green (Blythe 2003)

No39 printed in Mulberry (Swann 1755)

No40 printed in Pink (Sneyd Mills 1031)

Bristol Premier design No24 printed in Old English Blue



Bristol Premier design No40 printed in pink

There are several colourful freehand enamelled designs and some of these were quite popular. Examples do appear on Ebay regularly, but because they lack pattern numbers or names it is difficult to describe them meaningfully or search for them with any precision. It is a matter of keeping a watchful eye. Here are a couple of examples on Premier shape biscuit plates. Fortunately, the No63 example is named in the book as "The Clifton", and the No64 example is marked on the base as pattern 2359 providing another link with the Crown Ducal pattern numbering system.

Freehand enamelled Premier design No63 "The Clifton"

Freehand enamelled Premier design No64 (Pattern 2359)

I have another demitasse cup and saucer in the Premier shape featuring coloured lithographs of courting ladies and gents from a time past and country scenes. The lithograph was made by the Universal Transfer Co. and would be contemporary with these other patterns shown. But unfortunately I do not have a design number or Crown Ducal pattern number for it.



Lithographs of courting couples and country scenes from a bygone era

Here is an example of the Charlotte Rhead Stitch pattern 3274 on the Premier shape. The Premier was not generally used by Charlotte, there are no forms suitable for fancies, (decorative vases and jugs), in the range. She preferred to use the Cotswold range for tube-lined tableware and Cotswold and Victory for freehand and print designs. There are exceptions of course and because there was no small condiment set made in the Cotswold range, the Premier version tended to be used instead.



Charlotte Rhead designed Stitch, (3274), condiment set on Premier shape



For anyone interested in the Premier shape of Crown Ducal tableware it is worth occasionally searching on Ebay for "Old Hall Ivory Ware". Because Crown Ducal is not marked on the base, many folk will not know what they have and just list the text of the backstamp. When I searched recently there were several items in blue print of British country scenes, these are Premier design No29, (if you find them in grey print they are No58 and in green No59). They have a special back stamp with the word "Countryside" above a simplified image of Little Moreton Hall near Congleton and beneath there is the usual "Old Hall Ivory Ware England". Another pattern you may see is a chintz style, simply printed in one colour. Pink and blue have both been seen but records show that it was also made in mulberry, crimson, green,  grey and black. These are Premier design No93.

Edited 19th March 2019 to remove invalid links.