Plate, 11.75 inches diameter. Blue Transfer. Impressed maker's marks for Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co. This pattern is part of the "Fables" series, which refers to the fables of Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). La Fontaine said he was merely copying the tales of Aesop and other writers and putting the tales in rhyme, but he actually held the proverbial mirror up to his own society, the court of Louis XIV. He also gave the animals voices. There are at least 24 different patterns in this series. This pattern depicts the story of the Tortoise and the Hare in which, having been ridiculed by the Hare for moving so slowly, the Tortoise challenges him to a race. The Hare soon leaves the tortoise far behind and he is so confident of winning that he decides to take a nap. When he wakes up, however, he finds that the Tortoise has overtaken him and is so far ahead that he is unable to catch him up before the winning post. The moral is: "slow and steady wins the race".
The Cauldon Place works were founded about 1794 and built in 1802 by Job Ridgway. He died in 1814, and the works were carried on by his sons, John and William Ridgway, as Ridgway & Sons. In 1855 the Cauldon Place business passed into the hands of the firm of T. C. Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co. Mr. W. Moore, who had for many years been a valuable assistant of Mr. Ridgway, died in 1866 and his brother James Moore was admitted into partnership in 1875. Mr. James Moore died in 1881, after his nephew Mr. F. T. Moore took the entire management of the potting department. In 1882, Mr. T. C. Brown-Westhead died, after Mr. William B. Moore, the elder son of the late William Moore, (unitedly with his brother Mr. Frederick T. Moore) took the entire management of the business.
In 1876-77 Messrs. Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co. manufactured for the Prince of Wales a splendid and costly china dessert service decorated with finely painted hunting subjects, no two pieces being alike. They also made for the Imperial family of Russia richly decorated dinner tea dessert and breakfast services, all of which orders were obtained in competition with the Sèvres, Dresden, and other Continental manufactories, and also services for the Emperor of Morocco, including punch bowls of extraordinary largeness. In addition to this it is interesting to record that they also made for H. R. H. the Duchess of Edinburgh a series of toilette services from designs drawn by herself.
Medals have been awarded at the Exhibitions of London, 1851 and 1862; Paris, 1855 and 1878; Lyons, 1872; Vienna, 1873; Sydney, 1879; one first class medal and two first class awards Melbourne, 1880 medal and diploma; and Adelaide, 1881, gold medal and first order of merit. The firm were large contributors to the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876.
