Teapot: C.15 & A-2022

Titles

Teapot

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

• Tea kettle and cover
• Teapot and cover

Categories

• Earthenware
• Teaware

Description

Teapot in the form of a tea kettle, with large 'top' handle, earthenware, printed in blue and white underglaze with pastoral scenes after Spode’s ‘Italian’ pattern, interrupted on both sides with the verse: 'LADIES I HOPE / YOU WILL MAKE FREE / AND TELL ME HOW / YOU LIKE YOUR TEA’. Motto printed inside tea kettle, on base: 'Health to the Sick, / Honour to the Brave, / Success to the Lover, / and Freedom to the Slave'. Printed ‘WH’ mark on underside of lid.

Legal notes

Purchased with the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum Fund

Place(s) associated

• Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought (2022) by E. & H. Manners

Dating

Circa 1816 - Circa 1855

Note

This teapot is an example of an object used to subtly convey the politics or beliefs of its owner, in this case, their support for the Abolitionist cause. The short poem, displayed twice on the exterior, ‘Ladies I hope you will make free and tell me how you like your tea', is relatively well-known and features on other early-mid-nineteenth century tea wares. This has historically (mistakenly) been connected to the suffrage movement but here, in a very rare combination with a second well-known verse, ‘Health to the sick, Honour to the brave, Success to the lover, and Freedom to the slave' (taken from Robert Duke’s 1717 poem ‘The Review’) displayed inside the base of the teapot, it clearly alludes to the Abolitionist viewpoints held by the middle-class woman serving tea and her attitudes towards the consumption of sugar (refusing sugar, or at least that ‘produced by Slaves’ was connected to the Abolitionist cause). However, there are questions riased as to how this second verse, inside the teapot, was shown. Was it shown to visitors before tea was made, or shown to them after the tea was drunk, just visible through the tea leaves remaining in the bottom of the pot? Or was it a secret, known only to the hostess? Although the pattern here (without the verses) is a direct copy of Spode's popular 'Italian' pattern, the factory that produced the teapot is unknown. The initials, 'WH' recorded on the underside of the cover, have been found on other blue and white earthenware of this period and may refer to a number of different potters called William Hackwood, working out of Hanley until c. 1855.