FIG. XIV.—Puzzle Jug of Slipware. Inscribed I.B.
It remains to speak of dates and localities. Those of our wares that have no slip decoration can be traced back to the first years of the seventeenth century, if not to Elizabethan times. They continued to the early part of the eighteenth century, when they either disappeared or were improved out of recognition. Like all primitive wares, they were manufactured all over the country, and though it is certain that a large number of them were made in Staffordshire, it would be difficult to claim any particular piece for that district. Slip decoration, which dates back to mediaeval times, was equally universal. Indeed we know that a well-defined class of slip ware with stamped ornaments and patterns of dots and dashes was made at Wrotham in Kent from 1612–1717. Another group with a distinctive kind of scroll and fern ornament in thin white slip, and inscriptions usually of Puritanical tone, was made in or near London from the middle of the sixteenth century. A third kind is attributed with much probability to Cockpit Hill, Derby. It is characterized by moulded patterns with raised outlines which contained the coloured slips much as the cloisons contain the enamels on cloisonnée work. ¶ But the best slipware of Staffordshire, as exemplified by Figs. [I], [XII], and [XIV], is unmistakable in style, and yields to none in picturesque effect. Our earliest clue to its history was given by the simple legend scratched on the back of a dish similar to [Fig. I], THOMAS TOFT. TINKERS CLOUGH. I MADE IT., 166–. Tinker’s Clough is a lane between Shelton and Wedgwood’s Etruria. On the strength of this modest confession the name Toft ware has been applied by many writers to all slipwares of this class, and even to slipware generally. A number of other names, sometimes with dates, are found on these wares (e.g. Ralph Toft 1676, Charles Toft, Ralph Turnor 1681, Robart (sic) Shaw 1692), many of them no doubt the names of potters, others of those for whom the pots were made. Slipware, though naturally superseded by the finer earthenwares of the eighteenth century, is not yet extinct, and may be seen occasionally at country fairs of the present day. ¶ The question of Staffordshire delft ware is too long to consider here. It is a moot point if any such thing existed before the eighteenth century, and it is certain that delft was never made there to any extent worth considering. But this article would be incomplete if one omitted to give a few of the quaint inscriptions that are a feature of the various kinds of pots we have discussed. They tell their own story and need no comment:—
The gift is small, Good will is all.
Mary Oumfaris your cup. 1678. [Can this spell Humphreys!]
This for W. F. 1691.
The best is not to good for you. 1697. I.B. R.F.
Anne Draper this cup I made for you and so no more. I.W. 1707.
Come good wemen drink of the best Ion my lady and all the rest.
Brisk be to the med you desier as her love yow ma requare.
Robert Pool mad this cup With gud posset fil and