One of the latest dated examples I have seen is the plate engraved on Fig. [735], which forms part of a set belonging to a descendant of the artist who painted it, and has remained in the family from the time of its manufacture until it came into my hands. It is a plate painted in a somewhat peculiar style, in blue, with a Chinese figure, trees, cattle, and birds, and having on its under side the date 1760, and the initials M · B · E, as shown on Fig. [736]. These are the initials of Michael and Betty Edkins, of Bristol, of whom I shall have more to say presently.
Fig. 736.
It may be well to remark, en passant, that this mode of placing initials, which is so usual on traders’ tokens, was the favourite way of arranging the initials of husband and wife, and they were so understood without using the short &. The upper letter was the initial of the surname, and those below of the Christian names of the husband and wife. Thus
would read M & B E, and stand for Michael and Betty Edkins.
The Delft ware works were situated on “Redcliffe Backs,” near to the glass works of Messrs. Little and Longman. The names of the first potters are, as usual, lost, but in the early part of last century the works belonged to a Mr. Richard Frank, who seems to have been a man of standing in the place, and who employed, along with other workmen, a Mr. Thomas Patience, and a family of the name of Hope. Richard Frank, who had also works at Brislington, was the son of Thomas Frank, “gallipot maker,” of Bristol, who was married in 1697; he, the “gallipot maker,” is therefore the earliest recorded potter of this place. The goods produced at Richard Frank’s manufactory—who, as well as his father, is described as a “gallipot maker” in 1734–9 and 1754—were principally plates, dishes, and “Dutch tiles” for fire-places, dairies, &c. In the Museum of Practical Geology is a slab composed of twenty-four tiles, on which is painted in blue a view of St. Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol. These were made by Richard Frank, about 1738–50, and the arms of Bishop Butler appear upon one of them. The tiles were all, of course, painted by hand, and we have it on the authority of Michael Edkins, himself the actual painter of the plate, Fig. [735], that the brushes which he and the other workmen used were made by themselves from the hairs pulled from the nostrils and eyelids of cattle. Michael Edkins, the painter of Delft ware, was, it appears, from Birmingham, where he was apprenticed to a house painter. His master dying before his term expired, he was of course left to shift for himself, and made his way to Bristol, where, becoming acquainted with Patience and Hope, he got employed at Frank’s pottery, where he became a “pot painter,” and continued in that employment till the Delft pottery declined, “when (in 1761) he became a coach and general painter and decorator, and quickly rose to eminence, was employed about most public works in the city, assisted in painting the bas-reliefs to the altar-piece of St. Mary Redcliffe, and also assisted Hogarth in fixing his celebrated pictures in that altar-piece.” He was also a successful actor at the theatre. One branch of his business that he now followed was “enamelling glass ware,” which he did for Little and Longmans, and their successors, Vigor and Stevens, whose glass house adjoined the Delft pottery on Redcliffe Backs. The works stood on what is now, at the time I write, Redcliffe Wharf, occupied by Mr. Cripps, general wharfinger, on the river Avon.
Fig. 737.—Election Plate, 1754.
A plate bearing the words “Nugent only 1754,” was in all probability made by Richard Frank, who was a supporter of Nugent at the general election of that year. Another plate, commemorating the same year’s election for Tewkesbury, is supposed to be from the same works; it bears the words “Calvert and Martin For Tukesbury 1754 Sold by Webb.” Among other dated examples of Bristol Delft are the following, which may be from Frank’s pottery. A piece bearing the words “Ye 1st Septr 1761 Bowen · fecit;” a pair of plates made for a member of the family of Davis, with the letters