Ceramics and Liverpool
Antique pocket guides JELLY MOULDS Sally Kevill-Davies (Lutterworth Press 1983)
To most people today, the word ’jelly’ conjures up a lurid rubbery shape leering malevolently on a seaside landlady’s table, a hospital plate, or slithering down little Tommy’s plastic tub. It was not always like this. From the earliest days jelly was seen as a substance with with remarkable decorative qualities, and an ideal substance for culinary tromp l’oeil. During the 18th century it became almost a symbol of metamorphosis – not quite a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but a glittering confection from a cow’s foot. The jargon of the jelly-maker even entered the vernacular with terms such as things ‘turning out well’, or plans ‘refusing to gel’ and countless terrified legs have ‘turned to jelly’.
By 1899 Warne’s Model Cookery by Mary Jewry, listed under ‘Kitchen Utensils absolutely required by a Good Cook’: 3 Dariole moulds, 1 vegetable mould, 1 mushroom mould, 3 pudding moulds, 6 jelly moulds, 3 cake moulds and sugar moulds’. Edwardian tables groaned under the weight of moulded boiled puddings, ( even Christmas puddings were moulded, and the Queen Alexandra enjoyed ‘les viands froides a la gelee’ for breakfast at Windsor, while her husband tucked into tongue and ham jelly during intervals in his box at the opera. The empire-building fervour of the nation was embodied in the patriotic. Alexandra and Brunswick Star moulds (fig 6) and the quivering tiers of jelly and blancmange that rose ever higher on society tables, and strictures on their consumption (with a fork) were set forth in Manners and Rules of Good Society, 1880, by ‘A Member of the Aristocracy’.
The Herculeaneum Pottery Liverpool ’s Forgotten Glory Peter Hyland (Liverpool Museums Publisher)
Liverpool once had a pottery to rival the Staffordshire giants of Wedgwood, Minton and Spode. I would go further and say that the finer products of Herculaneum should be given a place among the top artistic and cultural achievements of Liverpool, for they straddle the gap between the local fine art heritage on the one hand and Liverpool’s long tradition of manufacturing ingenuity on the other. In recent years such historical accomplishments have tended to be overshadowed by more recent and ephemeral reputations.
It is worth noting that the Herculaneum Pottery was situated in Toxteth or, more correctly, Toxteth Park . The area now known as Toxteth includes areas of old housing, new leisure and residential developments and handsome Victorian villas, churches and parks. If any reader of this book in that locality is weary of its unfair reputation –take heart- nearly all the pieces shown in this book, including the stunningly elegant red jasper coffee-pot shown in Figure 55, were potted down on the South Shore. Made in Toxteth.
Design For Dessert Robin Emmerson
The second requirement of the French system was pryamidal arrangements: preserved and candied fruit was stuck together with dishes of diminishing size set between the layers to stabilise them. Soon smaller pyramids of jelly or flavoured ice were made to accompany them. They are described in a book by Francois Massialot, translated in 1702 as The Court and Country’s Cook 12 and they are set out in quadrilateral symmetry.They remind us of a baroque garden design, with its pyramids of topiary, as seen on the Stoke Edith hangings in the V & A. The parterres of different shapes also had their equivalent on the table.
Pyramids in the French fashion, from F. Massialiot, The Court and Country Cook, London, 1702 (By courtesy of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds).
A ‘parterre’ of varied geometrical shapes, from J.Gilliers, Le Cannameliste Francais, Nancy , 1751 (By courtesy of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds ).
Liverpool George Chandler (BT Batsford Ltd Publisher 1957)
Sugar refining was another new industry which was established in Liverpool in the 17th century. As early as 1667-8, Sir Edward Moore recorded in his Rental that “one Mr Smith, a great sugar baker at London, a man, as report goes, with forty thousand pounds”, was interested in a site for a sugar house in Liverpool- one result of the Great Plague and the Fire of London. Sir Edward prophesised that sugar would “bring a trade of at least forty thousand pounds a year from Barbadoes, which formerly this town never knew” - and in this respect he was guilty of an understatement.
In the following year we hear of a Liverpool ship laden with sugar which was taken by pirates. The first sugar house was, however, built by Richard Cleaveland and Dan Danvers from 1670 to 1673. This was a five storey building rated at £174 per annum, but the rate was only 3d. in the pound. Later Danvers’ house and sugar house were rated at £450. He was then the largest rate-payer in Liverpool. Danvers was a dissenter who was several times fined for non-attendance at church.
The earliest illustration of a Liverpool sugar house is contained in “Buck’s South West Prospect of Liverpool 1728”, which confirms that it lay south of the Old Dock.
Later, Samuel Derrick, the Master of ceremonies at Bath, noted eight sugar houses on his visit to Liverpool. Two of the sugar bakers were members of the Liverpool Ye Ugly Face Clubb. The importance of sugar refining in the town is illustrated by the fact that some of the early sugar bakers became mayors, one Richard Gildart serving twice.
Of all the new industries established in Liverpool in the 17th century, pottery was the most distinctive. As early as the 14th century, there was reference to a potter in Liverpool, and the codified bye-laws of 1540-1 provided for the fining of persons leaving clay hills in the streets, evidence that local clay was already being extensively applied for practical purposes, but there is no proof of extensive pottery manufacture before the 18th century. It is true that Robert Lyon, clay potter, was elected a freeman of Liverpool 1643, and there are several references in the Town Books of the late 17th century to the sale of pots, but it was not until later that potters like Richard Chaffers, and Philip Christian were produced.
Both potter and pipemaking were centred mainly on the east side of the town beyond the stream and Pool of Liverpool, so that the manufacturers could get easy access to the clay on the waste or common. Pottery and pipe works were established eventually in Shaw’s Brow (now William Brown Street), Folly lane, Richmand Row, Dale Street, Brownlow Hill, Duke Street and later at Toxteth Park and other places.
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