For me, part of the charm of Staffordshire pottery particularly in the earlier half of the century is its sometimes clumsy modelling and it's garish and bright colouring. Part of the reason for this is that it is not 'high end' stuff - it was made by people for people - unlike say, porcelain, which was meant for deeper pockets.
An example of a spelling mistake on a typical
Staffordshire Pottery figure.
It does give it a naive appeal especially when one comes across spelling mistakes, I have illustrated two here one is a 'Sheperdiss' and the other 'Rualers' (which I guess is Ruralers with an omitted 'r') however lets not be too sentimental. The workers in the potteries were hardly likely to have been schooled in spelling and would have copied from a prototype and anyway many of them were children!
Another example of a spelling mistake on Staffordshire
Pottery Pearlware
However, later in the century help was at hand as illustrated by the portrait group of William Wilberforce stood beside a child, a chimney, pick, shovel and a coal harness.
A Staffordshire Pottery portrait group of William Wilberforce
with a child, a chimney, pick, shovel and a coal harness.
