Craig,



I find your project on ceramics that are marked for institutions that are
recovered at a distance from those institutions interesting.  Back in the
early 1970s a bowl from the Atlantic Lunch in Washington D.C. was recovered
from the excavation of Tabbs Purchase in St. Mary's City, Maryland which
was sixty miles from that restaurant.  Oral History showed a community
connection between the Atlantic Lunch and St. Mary's County.  My article
"Ode to a Lunch Bowl: The Atlantic Lunch as an interface between St. Mary's
County, Maryland and Washington D.C." was published in the 1986 volume
of *Northeast
Historical Archaeology* Volume 13, pages 2-8.  This article can be
downloaded for free from the web site of the Council for Northeast
Historical Archaeology.



There is another situation where institutional vessels may be recovered a
long distance from the intended use.  We lived in Roebling, New Jersey from
1995 to 2008.  Roebling is 15 miles south of Trenton, New Jersey that had a
massive pottery industry that made a lot of hotelwares.  My wife, Amy C.
Earls, began collecting these wares from the local flea markets and antique
shops.  Many of these wares were from hotels in New York, Florida,
Massachusetts and other places.  A number of them have slight defects that
meant they were seconds.  When an intuition placed an order for wares with
their crest, the pottery company would produce more vessels that ordered,
so that the order would only be filled with perfect wares.  Those that were
less than perfect wound up in the local communities around the potteries
and would have been available at a lower cost.  Hope this helps.



Peace,

George L. Miller




On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 6:13 AM, C. Cessford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am currently conducting some work on ceramics that have been marked by
> the manufacturer with the name and/or crest of an individual or institution
> who ordered the ceramics. My work relates to the University of Cambridge
> and we have recovered material associated with a number of colleges from
> several sites that indicate that the pottery was deposited some distance
> from the actual college. It appears that some college vessels may have
> passed through several stages between primary use and ultimate deposition.
>
> The marking of ceramics with the name etc. of an individual/institution is
> a relatively widespread 18th-20th century practice and I am looking for
> parallels for discovering marked ceramics some distance for the point of
> usage.
>
> The only North American example I am aware of relates to the Earl of
> Dunmore, the last crown governor of Virginia (1771-75). Fragments from his
> service of armorial porcelain have been found at various sites in
> Williamsburg, possibly because they were carried off when the Governor's
> Palace was ransacked or sold when Dunsmore's surviving personal effects
> were auctioned off. My references for this date to the 1960's so I would be
> interested in anything more recent on this.
>
> Thanks for any pointers.
>
> Craig Cessford
>