Facsimile signatures. Part 2, Fanny Morrey

It is time to return to the subject of facsimile signature styles. It is more than 3 years since I started with the “easy ones” of Rose, Hannah and Elsie?

https://rhead-crownducal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/charlotte-rhead-facsimile-signatures.html

I believe my reasoning for what I wrote then still stands true. The statistics might have changed with more observations, but not in any significant way. Since then Gerrard Shaw has provided new information in his book on Crown Ducal Ware of 2015, with additional names and some employment dates. But with no links between these names and the pottery markings it has actually made my project harder!

My plan here is to significantly reduce the list of anonymous signature styles and ascribe several to Fanny Morrey in the hope that what is left will be easier to untangle.

Composite of proposed series of tube-lined marks by Fanny Morrey starting with the oldest at the top and the youngest at the bottom. The three forming a cross are styles from 1935-1936 which form a cluster where the sequence cannot be unravelled with confidence.

This constructed history of Fanny Morrey’s signature styles is all speculation. It is based on the premise that she changed her signature style throughout her time tube-lining Crown Ducal ware. The styles usually have similarities to the signature which is typically associated with the letter F and which collectors assume to be her mark.

For those who want the simple answer at the beginning, then Fanny Morrey tube-lined all items marked with an F, a DOT, or a 2, (except those 2's defined as being the work of Elsie Fearns? in the previous facsimile signature post).

These various styles also have to fit with information researched by Bumpus that Fanny was a very experienced tube-liner previously employed by Moorcroft and who may have joined Richardson’s sometime around 1933. Also, Shaw provides information that Fanny was with the company from 1932 until after WW2, but that she came with Charlotte from Burgess & Leigh. Although it would be good to know Fanny’s history prior to coming to Richardson’s it is not relevant to identifying her Crown Ducal work. It may well be that she worked at both Moorcroft and Burgess & Leigh; after all, Charlotte had worked at many potteries before 1932.

TL-FM5

Working backwards in time from her standard signature with the letter F it is important to note that this style, (TL-FM5), was not used until the patterns Tudor Rose, (4491), and Manchu, (4511), were well into their second year of production in 1937. Clearly, if Fanny joined the Crown Ducal team in 1932-33 there are going to be hundreds of examples her work with earlier designs and marked with different tubed base marks.

TL-FM4a, TM-FM4b, TL-FM4c left to right with 4a possibly the oldest and 4c the youngest.

So how did Fanny identify her work before her TL-FM5 mark?  There are several variations that are a cross between Charlotte’s own signature and Fanny’s. That is to say they all use the L for Lottie, but this collective group named TL-FM4, can have the letters E and A either both upper case or both lower case and the letter D can have the top horizontal line or not. In addition most are associated with the tube-lined number 2 rather than the letter F.

I have subdivided TL-FM4 based on their differences and think I have the sequence correct. However, it is a struggle to explain the distribution for all this diversity in how Fanny marked her work at this time. Perhaps future discoveries may require the sequence to be revised.

TL-FM3

One indisputable feature is that 66% of the pattern Orange Chain, (4100), items are marked with proposed versions of Fanny’s signature, and 50% are with the TL-FM3 style. For some reason she made this pattern her own. Pattern 4100 was designed at the end of 1934, so it would be reasonable to date that signature style to the end 1934 and early 1935.

Both Bernard Bumpus and Gerrard Shaw mention that Fanny Morrey was an already experienced tube-liner and that she came to work with Charlotte around 1932-33. This was a time when no Lottie Rhead signatures with an L instead of a C were applied, (except those by Charlotte herself). If Fanny joined in 1932-33 she must have used an alternative signature style, or styles, with a C for Charlotte.

TL-FM2

Fortunately there are two that fit the missing time period from the beginning of tube-lined production up to the end of 1934. The youngest pattern seen to date with the younger of these two styles is 4100. It does require a leap of faith to say that TL-FM2 and TL-FM3 are the marks of the same person. If one looks at the letters “h.e.a.d” of the TL-FM2 signature style and the lower case versions TL-FM4 and TL-FM5 they are as close a match as you could expect.

Importantly, the style of the number 2 is quite consistent amongst the different versions with a strong baseline, and is unlike the 2 used by Elsie Fearns?, which can often look like the number 7. In further support that this period 1 or early period 2 style, (TL-FM2), belongs to Fanny, is the observation that over 60% of Omar, (pattern 4036), items were tube-lined by this artist. It seems reasonable that one of the most complicated of Charlotte's designs would be tube-lined by a senior tube-liner. In fact Omar can be found with several different signature styles, (TL-FM2, TL-FM3, TL-FM4 or TL-FM5). My proposal for Fanny’s signature history means that she tube-lined them all. With this scheme I have yet to see an example of Omar tubed by anyone else.

Although the TL-FM2 signature exists on Byzantine examples from period 1, the earliest production period, there is a problem in that there are not enough period 1 examples. That is to say, Rose, Dora and Adams? were significantly more productive than Fanny based on only the TL-FM2 mark. If we are to believe Bumpus and Shaw that Fanny was there at the beginning we need yet another signature style to increase her work output from the earliest days.

TL-FM1

TL–FM1 is proposed as Fanny Morrey’s earliest signature style for Crown Ducal. The script is very similar to TL-FM2 but the C and the underline is more curved but it is usually accompanied with the characteristic number 2 mark. Adding together TL-FM1 and TL-FM2 production gets close to the period 1 output of Fanny’s colleagues. I believe her slightly lower productivity may be because she concentrated on the more complex designs and rarely worked on Lotus Leaves, Turin or Aztec.

TL-FM6

To end this story it is necessary to identify Fanny’s contribution after the WW2 restrictions on decorated pottery came into force in the summer of 1942 and after Charlotte herself had left the company. In his book, Gerrard Shaw notes that Fanny was working as a tube-liner after WW2, but there is no evidence that items marked with a tube-lined F were produced after the summer of 1942. If Fanny was tube-lining for Crown Ducal after Charlotte had left the company the only possibility is that she adopted the DOT mark which I will refer to as TL-FM6, instead of using F. There are no other marks that could signify her work. The other marks on post war items such as L, 11 and 111, are those that were in use by colleagues working while she was using the F mark.

Below are all of Fanny Morrey's observed output presented as histograms at the time of writing with the exception of unnumbered experimental designs. Also, items on small and awkward shapes are not included as these are difficult to fit into this chronology based on periods 1 to 6.  The history has been divided into two, one covering periods 1 and 2, and the other periods 3 to 6.You will probably need to click on them to open a larger version to make it legible.

Periods 1 & 2

Fanny Morrey's production history as observed until December 2017 grouped by backstamp defined period, facsimile signature style.

Periods 3, 4, 5 & 6

Fanny Morrey's production history as observed until December 2017 grouped by backstamp defined period, facsimile signature style.

Here is an attempt to date these different signature styles. It comes with my usual warning that they can only be a guide. There is no historical record of the tube-liners production history or their marks.

TL-FM1    Startup until early summer 1933
TL-FM2    Early summer 1933 until early 1935
TL-FM3    Early 1935 until late spring 1935
TL-FM4    Late spring 1935 until early 1937
TL-FM5    Early 1937 until mid 1942
TL-FM6    From mid 1942 onward, probably until mid-late 1950's

There are some loose ends to tidy up. There exist a few examples of Golden Leaves pattern 4921, with the period 2, AGR2 backstamp, unsigned but with a DOT mark. There are some Hydrangea table lamps, too awkward for any backstamp apart from the basic “MADE IN ENGLAND”, AGR8 style, also with DOT marks. These observations at first appear contrary to the rules of this proposed classification – suggesting there was a tube-liner “DOT” active in the mid 1930s. But I believe that this supports the case for the DOT mark to belong to Fanny Morrey as it links the post WW2 era to that of pre-WW2. With regard to the table lamps, there was no space for the signature, for Golden Leaves it may just have been pressure of work and a way to save time. In the scheme of things Fanny did not tube-line many items of Golden Leaves, so perhaps this is her venting her frustration at being sidelined from her usual task of working on the more difficult Florian, Carnation, Foxglove or Wisteria designs. The problem is easily solved by understanding that Fanny already had her abbreviated mark ready to use when needed and when the tube-liners were told to stop signing their work she reverted to using the DOT as she had used before.

I would like to suggest an explanation for the strange TL-FM3 style. It has capital letters E and A that interrupt the otherwise gradual evolution of Fanny’s signature. In fact it is a almost a copy of Charlotte's own signature, and the one that was used by the tube-liners at Burgess & Leigh. This may have been a problem for Charlotte. I propose that at some time around the introduction of pattern 4100 Fanny Morrey was given permission to sign L Rhead, (for Lottie Rhead), either as a symbol of seniority or friendship. However, this style TL-FM3 was so close to Charlotte's own signature that perhaps she was asked to modify it and after trying various options, which I have grouped as TL-FM4, it eventually stabilised as TL-FM5.

Another unusual sighting is that of a large salad bowl in pattern 3170, one of the USA designs drawn entirely in slip clay. It is the only example I have seen with the tubed mark 2 for Fanny without a signature. There are lots of pots with the F mark and no signature but only this one sighting of an unsigned earlier item of her work. These bowls would have been made when Fanny was using her TL-FM2 style, if it had been signed.

Also, I should mention that for statistical purposes in the histogram I include in the group TL-FM5, all the unsigned items that carry a tube-lined F mark as I assume they were made during the same time range as the signed items with an F mark.

I am hoping that the logic of all this does not come across as total fantasy. It seems to me to be a good way to reconcile the biographical research of Bernard Bumpus and Gerrard Shaw together with the observations of hundreds of base markings.

Charlotte Rhead facsimile signatures. Part 1

In his books Bernard Bumpus created a list with the names and marks of the Crown Ducal tube-liners, and Gerrard Shaw has a similar list of names in his dissertation. I am not aware of any new information being found since these publications which are now about 15 and 20 years old. Hope must now be fading of linking any more names to these tube-lined marks.

Published information of tube-liners and their marks

Despite there being no new factual information about Charlottes work colleagues I believe that information from observing which signature styles are found on which patterns and associated with which backstamp style may reveal some useful information. Each distinctive facsimile signature style has a relationship to the date when the mark was applied. Although many of the signature styles may not be definitively attributed to individual named decorators, their characteristic marks clearly occur in clusters with regard to backstamps and patterns and consequently a date range. This information can be used to estimate when particular tube-liners were working for Charlotte and what patterns they preferred or were instructed to work on. 

The cataloguing of the signature styles is fraught with difficulty. There is a strong temptation to make associations, and this must be balanced against the risk of creating links where none actually exists. The philosophy adopted here is to record all styles that have recognisably different characteristics, but to group and link them if they could reasonably be by the same individual. If a new interpretation of the observations makes more sense in the future then it should be quite easy to present the findings anew. 

I have identified between thirty and forty different signature styles but Bumpus and Shaw record barely a dozen names or tube-lined initials. It is hoped to demonstrate that several tube-liners used different signature styles during the course of their time working at Crown Ducal. But some styles are represented by a very small number of observations and it may never be possible to fit them into the picture.

In this first post on the subject I am going to present the signature styles of three tube-liners, Rose Dickenson, Hannah Williams and Elsie Fearns. These are recognisable signature styles which collectors will be familiar with. Analysis of variation in a tube-liners style with regard to time and pattern range can suggest some interesting detail about the production and employment history at Richardsons. These are some of the easy ones to get started with, others are more difficult or impossible to interpret.

In a previous post I introduced a concept of "periods" for defining the age of when a pot was made and I shall use these terms for describing when tube-liners were active. Providing there is sufficient confidence I may use actual years to provide more precision, but they can only ever be estimates because there is no documentation from the 1930s recording the Crown Ducal production history.

Firstly, I need to point out an error made by Bumpus, and that is the linking of the K mark to a tube-liner. The .K. mark is definitely not the identifier of a tube-liner. It is a code applied by the tube-liner so that the enameller will be informed to decorate the pot in a certain manner. These codes are recorded in the surviving Crown Ducal documents and pots marked with a K are also likely to have a signature of one of the known tube-lining artists together with their letter or number mark.

Rose Dickenson (possible spelling Dickinson) 

TL-RD

From the range of patterns and backstamps found with Rose's signature style it can be confidently proposed that Rose was effectively present during the entirety of Charlotte’s time at Richardson’s. Her signature has not been observed on a few designs but the long term tube-liners like Fanny, Dora, Rose and Hannah appear to have had favourites and concentrated their efforts on particular patterns. Then by the time of WW2 these experienced decorators tended, (though not exclusively), to work on the most complex patterns and on special orders, so their marks may not be found on some of the later, simpler designs.

Rose in her mid 20s - photo taken c. 1938-1940

Although the signature style of Rose does change with time, there is rarely any difficulty in identifying her work. The dot and curved stroke forming her initial letter D is very distinctive. I have not subdivided her entire catalogue of work, (yet!), but just concentrated on her early styles as this demonstrates on what she was working on during that first year or so with Charlotte Rhead.

Rose Dickenson TL-RD1

The style TL-RD1  indicates an item of Roses's earliest work. So far it has only been found on patterns Lotus Leaves, (2682) and Turin, (2691) from Period 1. Notice the L for Lottie Rhead, (like Charlotte's work at Burgess & Leigh), suggesting these were made during the first months of production before Charlotte had created her new "Crown Ducal" identity and perhaps guiding how her team should identify their work.

Rose Dickenson TL-RD2

The style TL-RD2  is also her early work from Period 1.  Found on patterns Lotus Leaves, (2682), Turin, (2691), Aztec, (2800), USA pattern 3172 and Padua, (3636).  Now with a C for Charlotte, the distinctive letter h, but still with the horizontal stroke to the letter d.

Rose Dickenson TL-RD3

The style TL-RD3 is at present a group of all her other signature styles. After TL-RD2 Rose developed a lovely flamboyant style with large CR and h, but later she became more efficient in her signature but it is always an instantly recognisable version of TL-RD3.

Production history graph showing distribution of Rose's early signature styles

The graph above shows the distribution of Rose's early signature styles. TL-RD1 and TL-RD2 are only found on items marked with Period 1 backstamps. This graph only displays observations until pattern 4040 in Period 2 but of course she continued tube-lining probably until Charlotte left in 1941/42.

The graph is instructive because it shows that her earliest work was on the simpler linework patterns of Lotus Leaves, Turin and Aztec, not Byzantine. I would hazard a guess that this might mean Rose was learning a new skill from Charlotte, although before the end of Period 1 she was decorating complex designs like Byzantine and Rhodian.

Hannah Williams

TL-HW

The signature of Hannah Williams also appears to have evolved, the similarities of these three styles are too striking to be ignored. The development of the capital R is the only real difference in the signature and the change in the initial letter from B to H is perhaps a change from maiden surname to forename. Bernard Bumpus ascribed the letter B signature to Violet Barber but he did qualify this with a question mark clearly indicating his uncertainty. The pattern and backstamp style distribution for these three signatures display a perfect sequential development. 

Hannah Williams TL-HW1

The TL-HW1 style is found on some Period 1 patterns particularly Byzantine, (2681), Rhodian, (3272), Primula and Granada, (3321) and on Period 2 pattern Hydrangea, (3797), as well as examples of  Period 1 designs produced during Period 2. From the proportion of Rhodian, Granada and Primula examples seen with the HW1 style compared with other established tube-liners of Period 1,  Hannah probably arrived when production of Rhodian was in full swing, late summer 1934 would be a reasonable estimate and probably stopped using the HW1 style in early 1935.

Hannah Williams TL-HW2

 

The TL-HW2 signature style is not common and apart from the earlier designs only appears on two patterns that are not found with TL-HW1 and those are Blue Peony, (4016) and Persian Rose, (4040). Therefore the HW2 style may only have been used for a few months or so in early/mid 1935. Some examples of the HW2 style have the horizontal top stroke for the letter d.

Hannah Williams TL-HW3

From pattern 4100 onward the typical signature style TL-HW3 with the letter H was used until Hannah left Richardson’s. The youngest design seen with her mark is 6016, but the number seen of the late, complex designs is similar to those produced by Rose and Dora so it is reasonable to assume she stayed at Richardson’s until Charlotte left.

Production history graph showing distribution of Hannah's early signature styles

The production history graph of Hannahs earliest work shows complex designs such as Byzantine, Rhodian and Granada. So I think it is safe to assume that Hannah was an experienced tube-liner before she started at Richardsons. I have not found any record of where she acquired her skill, maybe she had worked with Charlotte at Burgess & Leigh and was able to rejoin her, or possibly she was a colleague of Fanny Morrey at Moorcroft.  The number of Period 1 items tubed by Hannah is significantly less than some of her fellow workers, only 15%-18% of the number that are marked by Adams, Rose Dickenson or Dora Jones and therefore she probably joined well after Charlotte had set up operations at Richardsons. Late summer of 1934 would be a good estimate, just in time to prepare Byzantine, Rhodian and Granada pots for the Christmas shoppers!

Elsie Fearns?

TL-EF

These two styles are very similar and are probably by the hand of the same tube-liner whom Bumpus tentatively names Elsie Fearns. He has a question mark after Elsies name and Shaw does not have her in his list of tube-liners. I have no further personal information on this tube-liner and so for the present am happy to defer to Bernards best efforts to identify this tube-liner.

The only significant difference between them is the the case of the letter E. If the output of these two are merged they seamlessly become representative of one worker. The other characteristic common to both styles is the mark of the number 2 which often has the bottom stroke truncated so that it may look like the number 7.

Elsie Fearns? TL-EF1

The capital E version started sometime in period 1, probably around the time when Rhodian, (3272), and the large salad bowls and platters were being produced for the USA market. This would be spring of 1934. The youngest patterns seen with the capitalised letter E are few examples of 4491 and 4511 which would date to early spring 1936. From then on all examples use the lower case letter e.

Elsie Fearns? TL-EF2

The youngest pattern numbers with this signature style are a few examples 4953, 4954 and 4957, so it seems reasonable to conclude that this tube-liner stopped working with Charlotte soon after the introduction of Foxglove, Wisteria and Arabian Scroll, probably before the middle of 1937.

Production history graph showing distribution of Elsies signature styles

This production history graph shows the entire recorded output for Elsie. The number of Period 1 items seen with her mark are about 30% of what either Adams, Rose or Dora produced giving an estimated start time of spring 1934, and this would tie in nicely with the large quantity of Rhodian, Primula and Granada that she worked on. There are no significant numbers of Lotus Leaves, Turin and Aztec in the sample, so again, like for Hannah I have to speculate that she may have been an experienced tube-liner joining Charlottes team.

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WARNING! Virtually all this post is speculation based on my observations, so although I hope the reader finds this interesting it could be riddled with untruths! Wouldn't it be great if the veracity could be confirmed. I am not too concerned if there are errors and I will make corrections if anyone has information to help with this. The biggest difficulty in creating a story here is who tube-lined all those unsigned Stitch, Patch and Posy items. Bumpus writes in his description of Stitch that they were worked by apprentice tube-liners and juniors.

But who were these people? If you were an apprentice or junior presumably you became skilled and a senior. But apart from a few tube-liners whose marks appear only in the mid 1930s there isn't really a large turnover or change in tube-liners. And what about all the tube-lined stitched edge Cotswold tableware? Did the same team decorate those or was there another group at the factory who are unknown?

I seriously wonder if Charlottes group of tube-liners was large enough to support this idea of a hierarchy where today we only know the senior members. Isn't it more likely that the team responded to what orders were coming in. If huge quantities of Stitch were ordered by retailers then surely everyone would have to help out to complete the orders.

It's a mystery - or perhaps someone can help with the answer.

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More tube-liner profiles to follow........