Plate, 10.5 inches diameter. Impressed "Cauldon" mark belongs to Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co. Although there is no pattern name, this pattern was very likely designed by the French artist Goutard Leonce, who was employed by the firm c. 1878-1885. Cluett2004, Pg. 115, reprints a portion of the 16 March 1878 The Staffordshire Advertiser, which states that Leonce created a dessert service of 36 pieces with rabbits "up to all kinds of mischief and fun." This pattern features a crouching rabbit with a somewhat disgruntled expression with a large beetle approaching it from the left.
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.
In 1904 Brown-Westhead Moore & Co. was incorporated as a Limited company and was renamed Cauldon (Brown-Westhead Moore & Co.) Ltd. The ownership and management of the company remained the same. The company used the shortened name 'Cauldon Ltd.' on their ware. Cauldon Ltd. suffered from financial difficulties; at one time the capital and number of shares in the company were reduced. The company was placed in receivership in 1920. It was brought out of administration by Harold Robinson and it became Cauldon Potteries Ltd.
