Local History Tavistock Crested Ware By Roderick Martin


IT is summer 1912 and you have come by train to enjoy a nice day out in Tavistock. You deserve this break and as it is a hot day you decide to treat yourself to an ice cream or perhaps buy a bottle of soft drink from the vendors in Guildhall Square. Then you walk beside the river, visit the abbey ruins, and walk up into the shops to select some postcards to send to your relatives and friends. Finally, you finish off the day by purchasing a small memento of your visit, such as a piece of Tavistock crested ware for six pence, to put on the mantelpiece back in your home as a reminder of that happy time spent in the town.


It is a fact that when we are on holiday our financial guard is down, and on these occasions we can make the most idiotic of purchases, instantly regretted of course when we return home. In the 1880s Adolphus Goss, keen to revitalise his father William Henry Goss’s pottery business, spotted a potential market, one based on persuading the Victorian and later the Edwardian holidaymakers to buy porcelain miniatures, something they would not even think about buying at home. Crucial to the success of his venture was the easy association of a porcelain miniature with those happy holiday memories. In some places there were readily identifiable features i.e. Blackpool with its tower, but for the majority of towns their name and coat-of- arms was to prove the perfect link. Goss successfully built-up a business based on supplying one retail outlet in each British town with porcelain miniatures bearing the town’s coat-of-arms. For locations which did not have a registered coat-of-arms a suitable one could always be quickly designed.


Staffordshire such as Arcadian, Carlton, Grafton, Savoy, Shelley and Willow Art joined in the so- called crested ware trade, many, unlike Goss, supplying as many outlets as possible. However one rule was maintained by all potteries - local crested ware could only be purchased in the relevant places. So only crested ware with the name and town crest of Tavistock could be bought in Tavistock, and


8 Other potteries in North Tavistock Coat of Arms


nowhere else. In Tavistock Goss’s outlet was Thomas W. Greenfield’s stationery shop in Bedford Square.


Many of the common porcelain miniatures were modelled on well- known artefacts in museums such as urns and vases.


Other popular


themes included animals, buildings, monuments, sports etc. During the First World War the potteries appealed to the patriotic fervour and glamorised the war by producing large numbers of battleships, tanks, balloons, aeroplanes and other military paraphernalia. However in the 1920s public enthusiasm for crested ware waned, and by the late 1930s most potteries had ceased this line of production. In the 1950s and 1960s many homes still had cabinets crammed full of crested ware, all lovingly preserved by an older generation but considered to be ‘junk’ by the younger family members. Largely as a result of over-enthusiastic household clearances perhaps less than 10% of all crested ware items manufactured have survived. Today most people realise that crested ware items have a small eBay value but except for some specialist pieces in perfect condition, they are not hugely valuable collectables.


Still top for quality are pieces


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