Commemorative Jug, James Brownjohn, Wood House Farm, 1814

Item Number: J49
Shape Type: Jug
Pattern Name: Boy with Fishing Pole
Date: c. 1814
Dimensions: Height: 8.00 in, Diameter: 7 in
Maker: Dillwyn & Co
Maker’s Mark: Unmarked
Description:
A Dutch shape jug with a molded bamboo handle. Blue printed with a name, location and date: “James Brownjohn, Wood House Farm, 1814”, overglaze painted in brown enamel.  A picture medallion type border was printed on the exterior rim with simple landscape scenes taken from the central pattern and a floral border was used on the interior rim. Morton Nance illustrates this pattern on both a plate and a small jug in his book, The Pottery & Porcelain of Swansea & Nantgarw, plate XLVIII, A and B, and on p. 102 in his description of the pattern he attributes them both to the firm of Dillwyn & Co. This example is not marked. Nance refers to the two figures in the pattern as “one holding an umbrella and the other a whip.” Later, the name for this pattern became known as “Boy with Whip”, however, the whip is actually a fishing pole and, as such, an alternate name is assigned to it here as “Boy with Fishing Pole”. Also included in this collection is a 4 inch high mug with the same pattern see J141. The pattern printed on the handle of the mug matches the pattern on the handle of the jug. The mug is also dated 1814 with the following inscription: “For a Friend, 1814″. It is enameled in brown overglaze with the same decorative embellishment above it identical to that used on the jug. As such the jug and the mug, with identical patterns and molded shapes along with very similar inscriptions painted in the same style must have been made by the same factory.

Research findings: James (Sansom) Brownjohn appears in the Moreton (Dorset) parish baptisms, recorded in 1814.  This jug was likely made to commemorate his birth. The Brownjohn family clearly appears in local agricultural records  (Brownjohn’s Farm in Owermoigne), so a farm-name connection to the family exists — but a direct 1814 link between that specific James and a farm called Wood House / Woodhouse hasn’t been found.