Tim,

Without seeing the sherds I would say your vessel is Jackfield (or
Jackfield-type or blackware). You have a highly-fired earthenware body
(fired to stoneware hardness) with a lustrous black glaze and it is from a
teapot.

I've only seen Jackfield on fine earthenware tea or coffee sets. I have
found shiny black glaze on coarse earthenwares, mostly redware bowls and
cups, but I don't call them Jackfield, because the body is not refined or
highly fired. Instead these are described as a redware vessel with a "black
glaze."

According to Hume (2001:275) Jackfield is "a thin, red- or gray bodied,
high-fired earthenware under a shine iron-black glaze." On page 276 of this
same reference there is a picture of a "jackfield-type jug in a salt-glazed
stoneware form characteristic of the 1750s."

The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab web site has this to say about
the term Jackfield, "Although associated with the town of Jackfield in
Shropshire, this ware was also commonly produced in Staffordshire by potters
such as Thomas Whieldon. Therefore, the use of the term "Jackfield-type" or
even "blackware" is preferred (Barker and Halfpenny 1990). Link to this page
below.

I would like to hear how others classify their black glazed vessels/sherds?
Are all black glazes called "Jackfield," "Jackfield type," or "blackware" or
just vessels with well-fired refined earthenware bodies? Did 18th and 19th
century consumers distinguish between high-fired and low-fired earthenware
bodies?


Grant L. Day




Barker, David and Pat Halfpenny
1990 Unearthing Staffordshire:  Towards a New Understanding of 18th Century
Ceramics.  City of Stoke-on-Trent Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent,
England.


Noel Hume, Ivor.
2001 If These Pots Could Talk:  Collecting 2,000 Years of British Household
Pottery. Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Link to web site with jackfield information
http://www.jefpat.org/diagnostic/Historic_Ceramic_Web_Page/Historic%20Ware%2
0Descriptions/Jackfield.htm





Grant L. Day, RPA
 Principal Investigator
 Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc.
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