There was a sense of excitement as we walked through the doors of the Kent Museum of Freemasonry in the very heart of Canterbury. Applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant of £250,000 have received positive responses and the Museum trust, under the Chairmanship of Assistant Provincial Grand Master Charles Boxer and Secretary Roger O’Brien, are intent on preparing themselves. On our visit to the Museum we decided to concentrate on Masonic pottery.
     Initially pottery was hand decorated until 1757 when William Cookworthy discovered Kaolin or china clay. It gave English pottery factories an important impetus in the competition with the importation from the Far East. John Sadler, the Liverpool engraver, is credited with the invention of transfers c1749. He noticed that discarded transfers he gave to children were used to decorate broken pieces of pottery. It led him to experiment with the application of wet print onto the surface of pottery, fixing it permanently by firing. It revolutionised pottery decoration.

Chinese Ware

The Museum collection has several early pure oriental Chinese punch bowls. Designs of the masonic decorations were sent to China and the finished products re-imported into England. An example belonging to the Adams Lodge, No. 158, is of exceptional quality. It has a matching drinking mug, which has been masterfully repaired. The masonic emblems are delicate with gold highlights.

Cabbage Leaf

On display is an outstanding large ‘cabbage patch’ pitcher thirty-two centimetres high. The strong black transfers on either side are of biblical images. The masonic reference appears under the spout with the figure of Hope on the left and Justice on the right surmounted by Charity seated with masonic emblems dispersed between them. This design, dated c1806, is popular and attributed to a Freemason, named Butterfield, of Fidelity Lodge, No. 289, in Leeds. Below the image is a dedication:

A Present from W W Russell to the
Half Way House Challock Kent

The Half Way House is a thriving tavern ten miles or so from Canterbury and one can surmise that in the midnineteenth century masonic meetings took place on the premises.

Staffordshire

An earlier twenty centimetre high octagonal jug has more information on its surface. Made in the Longton Hall Factory in Staffordshire by the Hampson Brothers, it is dated c1750. The crudely modelled porcelain is quaint and charming by its very simplicity. The masonic transfers are violet-blue, highlighted with gilt borders. These pottery items were intended for practical use by the masonic fraternity and often have some minor damage.
     Another piece is a Jug attributed to Coalport in Shropshire c1825. The brightly coloured image depicts the Master seated between two pillars and the Arms of the Premier Grand Lodge to his left. Coalport was home to the pottery founded by John Rose in 1795. Production moved to Staffordshire in 1926.
     A very similar and colourful transfer – with the Master now to the left of the image – appears on a beautiful set of a twelve centimetrehigh jug and two beakers also attributed to Coalport, property of Chicheley Lodge, No. 607. Under the spout the stylised letters J O appear gilt edged. The beakers have identical transfers and are eight centimetres high. Another classical Staffordshire ware in the collection is a puzzle jug; richly decorated with flowers, the handle projects through the jug into it.
     The text in the centre above the italicised letters IHT is taken from Revelations 2: 10,

be thou faithful unto death
and I will give thee a crown of life

Sunderland

The best-known pottery emanates from around Newcastle and Sunderland. The distinct ovoid shaped and straight-necked Sunderland Lustreware was produced from about 1790 to the first half of the nineteenth century. It is generally of pink lustre, marbled or sponged on to the body of the piece, often heightened with splashes of bright colours, with intervening transfers in black. They are clumsy in decoration but most definitely striking and attractive. One eighteen centimetre-high jug has masonic transfers on one side and the quote:

The world’s a city with many a crooked street,
and death’s a market place were (sic) all men meet!
If life were merchandise which men could buy,
The rich would live, the poor alone would die.

The west view of the high iron bridge across the Wear, built by R Burden and opened on 9 August 1796, is a very popular theme on many Sunderland pieces, including masonic ones.

Frog mugs

An amusing curiosity is the now famous Sunderland frog mugs. A frog is imbedded into the inside of the mug and it originated as a joke of dropping a live toad into someone’s drink. Samuel Pepys recorded in September 1666 in his famous diaries an incident where a group of friends ‘did begin a frolick to drink out of a glass with a toad in it’. The example in the museum is in pristine condition with the white and black transfer depicting King Solomon’s temple in the background and the four virtues in the foreground. The 6-line poem is from the second stanza of Matthew Birkhead’s The Enter’d Prentice’s Song, which appeared in James Anderson’s first Constitutions of 1723:

The World is in pain
Our secrets to gain,
And still let them wonder and gaze on
They ne’er can divine
The Word or the Sign
Of a Free and Accepted Mason

This transfer frequently used on Masonic pottery is attributed to J. Barlow.

Liverpool

Another distinctive pottery style is the barrel shaped Liverpool ware, with black and white transfers on white china.
     An early eighteenth century, twenty centimetre-high jug has been professionally repaired and has a transfer of symbols which are esoteric in nature. Twelve interlaced triangles within a circle are surrounded by a Pascal lamb, a cockerel, the Volume of Sacred Law, Skull and Crossbones and other emblems. The text in a small vignette is familiar:

A new name written
which no Man knoweth
saveth him that receiveth it

A last item is a canary silver lustre jug, obvious from the bright yellow background to the transfers. One large panel is divided into four sections and the first part reads:

No sect in the world can with Masons compare
So ancient sociable the badge which they wear
That all other orders, however esteemed,
Inferior to Masonry justly are deemed

Time and space precluded us from describing more of the beautiful Masonic pottery pieces. It was a pleasure to return to the warm and friendly atmosphere of the East Kent Masonic Library & Museum and it is with anticipation that we can look forward to a successful transition into larger premises opening the doors of the beauty of the Craft to the outside world.

The East Kent Masonic Library & Museum. St. Peter's Place, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 2DA. Tel: 01227 766013 Email: office@eastkentfreemasons.org Open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday,10:00 - 12:00; 14:00 - 16:00. 1st and 3rd Saturdays (May to September) 11:00 - 14:00. Curator & librarian: Peter Young, 01304 812 625.

All photographs by Dennis Ramsey.