Plate, 8 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed maker's mark for James Beech of the Swan Bank Works. This pattern features a rectangular cartouche of a rustic scene with shed and steps leading up to a door on a house nearby in the center left. A smaller round cartouche superimposed to the right features a quiet river scene with a boy sitting in a small sailboat. Another round cartouche, infilled with a floral design, is placed underneath the rectangular cartouche to the right. Another semi-circular cartouche infilled with a geometric design sits on the lower left against the geometric border composed of alternating triangles.
James Beech was born in 1822 in Tunstall, the son of Joseph Beech, a warehouseman, and Mary Cumberlidge. James Beech was a partner in Beech, Hancock & Co., which operated Swan Bank Pottery in Burslem from 1851 to 1855. The partnership, renamed Beech & Hancock, reopened in about 1857 in Tunstall and operated there until 1876, the last six years at another works named the Swan Bank Pottery. James Beech became the sole proprietor of the business in 1877 and operated the Swan Bank Works under his own name from 1877 until he died in early 1887. The business continued until 1889 when it was taken over by Boulton, Machin & Tennant.
