Plate, 7.75 inches diameter. Red transfer with gilding. Printed maker's mark for the Brownhills Pottery Co. The Registered No. indicates a pattern registration date of 1884. The "Mersey" pattern consists of two bunches of seaweed opposite each other with a cartouche superimposed. The right cartouche is rectangular and features sailboats on the sea with gulls flying above. The cartouche on the left is shaped like a shell and hangs from a leather tie. It features a young boy at the seaside skipping stones with sailboats and gulls in the far distance. The complex border varies from a single line with sprouting spirals to a much thicker patchwork of shapes to a band filled with a half-circular cartouche decorated with geometric designs and flanked by flowering prunus branches.
The Brownhills Works (formerly Marsh and Haywoods) were for many years carried on by Mr. George F. Bowers, who attained a fair reputation for china goods, and gained a medal at the Exhibition of 1851. Subsequently he commenced the manufacture of earthenware, which he continued until his death, when he was succeeded by his son, Mr. Frederick F. Bowers. On his failure in 1871 the manufactory was purchased by Mr. James Eardley of Alsager, and was then carried on by his son and sons-in-law, Messrs. Alfred J. Eardley, Edwin Meir, William H. Bratt, Robert H. Parker, and George Hammersley, under the style of “The Brownhills Pottery Co.” The goods produced by the Company were of the usual useful classes of table, tea, toilet, and other requisites, in fine earthenware, stoneware, buff, turquoise, and cream-colored ware; and in decorations of the fine earthenware services improvements were achieved by which the printing of enamel upon the glaze, and lining on the bisque, were effected. In stoneware, some excellent designs in teapots, jugs, etc. were produced, as are also jugs and other useful articles in creamware; the adaptations of Japanese ornamentation in the former were highly successful.
