Only twice had I have seen this pattern until 2007,
this is one that I bought in a local junk/antiques shop
in the Black Country, Cradley Heath or Lye areas, back
around 1980. Later I saw this pattern again I grabbed the
opportunity of buying the few tiles on offer, in
different colours with pink rather than blue being the
dominating colour. I was hoping that these would help
with identification and they did, unfortuantely there was
no hidden Wm de Morgan mark but on one there was a rubber
stamp mark, as commonly used around 1880 - 1910, which
says 'Holland'. It can be identified as being made for
export to the British by the dimensions, 6" x 6" being
the British standard size compared to 125mm x 125mm (~5"
x 5") the Dutch standard.
*I believe it most likely that these tiles were made
for Barnard, Bishop and Barnard, famous ironfounders from
Norwich and associated mostly with the famous architect
and designer Thomas Jekyll. BBB's ironwork is justifiably
famous, they did works for many prestigious clients and
exhibited at major exhibitions in the late Victorian era.
BBB made many architectural ironwork structures for the
City of Norwich, including a Pagoda and Bridge both
designed by Thomas Jeckell. BBB exhibited at the
International Exhibition of 1862 and the 1876 Centennial
Exhibition in Philadelphia. BBB are also famous for
designing and making cast iron lawnmowers.
BBB had tiles made to their designs by various
companies most notably William de Morgan & Co, and
Mintons China Works, William de Morgan's first major
contract was to supply tiles to them. But just as William
Morris had tiles made by subcontractors including de
Morgan and in Holland so did BBB, many of their patterns
originally made for them by Mintons China Works appear on
blanks from other companies. Unfortunately the makers of
these are unidentified and indeed the tiles made for them
by Mintons China Works do not have the makers name verso
but are clearly recognisable as being made by them.
Tiles made for BBB have one outstanding
characteristic, they specified thicker tiles, they are a
full half an inch thick rather than the usually
three-eights of an inch. Half inch thick tiles are
occassionally found in hearths, Mintons China Works made
tiles "designed for hearths for which an extra thick body
is used" although the vast majority of hearth tiles we
see in situ and removed are three-eights of an inch.
Frankly there is little practical benefit in using
thicker tiles, once properly fixed the thickness has
little bearing upon the durability, it was more of a
marketing point rather than a practical advantage.
It is likely that this tile was designed for BBB by a
notable designer and that after earlier production in
England the manufacturing was sent to Holland where
traditional hand made tile making skills were still
strongly in evidence compared to in England where the
overwhelming majority of tile production had shifted to
industrial methods. Morris & Company similarly had
tiles made in Holland. BBB's customers appreciated the
qualities of hand made items and were prepared to pay the
extra costs associated with them.
*I am advised that the design appears in a Dutch book
on tiles with the following information: The design is
called Julfa (a city in Armenia) and the original design
is still in the collection from tile producer Tighelaar
in Makkum. The author suggested c1920 and that the tiles
were produced for the London tile dealer Martin van
Straaten of 28 - 30 Little Britain, London (current
postcode EC1A) who ordered tiles from Makkum from around
1894.
