Pattern No: 958

The first image, the group of pattern 958, gives an indication of what this pattern looks like in quantity. However, although many shapes have been recorded, with the exception of the butter dish and the biscuit barrel, most of them are decorative items, notably vases. Only the thick flat dish, probably a teapot stand, gives a hint that the pattern was applied to useful ware such as tea or coffee sets.
There’s an image of two vases and two covered pots in Pottery Gazette, April 1915 (see the Exhibitions Resources section, 2^nd British Pottery & Glass Fair 1915).

Unusually, the hand-written pattern number often has a shape reference suffix. The references recorded so far are:
– 3: two-handled cylindrical pot;
– S6, S8 and S10: cooling tower-shaped vase (the figure indicates size, in inches);
– 6: spherical vase with ‘handles’;
– 8: spherical vase;
– 9: two-handled vase;
– 11: lidded ginger jar;
– 13: conical vase;
– 15: squat vase;
– 1523: tall square vase.

This design is one of a handful that Gray decided to register with, what is today called, the Design Index. It is number 646904, submitted on 15 March 1915, granted 12 May 1915 – see the black & white archives’ extracts, at right.

A pattern sold by the London retailer Mappin & Webb.