Granny's Tales and Treasures
Gwen's Crested China
In the china cabinet are eight pieces of crested china, that I believe were collected by my mother Gwendoline Catherine Braund née Smith when she was in her twenties. Although the Goss company is noted for this ware, only one piece, the larger, urn-shaped piece from Warminster, is marked Goss. The other towns that are featured are: Teignmouth, Folkestone, Ipswich, Portsmouth, Alderney and Ilfracombe.
Gwen definitely went to Warminster on a regular basis during the Second World War, visiting her cousin who was stationed there, as that was where she met my father. Portsmouth and Folkestone were likely day trips from her home; there was a family outing or holiday to Folkestone in 1929.
Gwen and her Mother, Ivy, in Folkestone 1929
know that Gwen went to Devon on holiday; Teignmouth may have been a honeymoon visit as part of her honeymoon was spent in Torquay but a trip to Stokeinteignhead in 1951 is perhaps more likely. I am not sure if she visited Ilfracombe. Alderney and Ipswich are more of a mystery and may have been gifts.
Gwen at Stokeinteignhead 1951
The final piece, the fish, commemorates Dulwich College, just a stone’s throw from where Gwen’s grandmother Clara Woolgar née Dawson lived and this make me wonder if this may have been an inherited piece. It is possible that my great grandfather, Philip Woolgar, worked for Dulwich College when he gave up being a milkman to become a gardener.
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Perhaps it was not Gwen but her mother Ivy, or even her grandmother Clara, who purchased some of this china. There are not many clues from the china itself. One piece, the Dulwich fish, has no mark and two, the Alderney and Folkestone pieces, just have numbers. The Portsmouth teapot is marked ‘Florentine Made in England’. The firm Taylor and Kent produced this primarily between 1900 and 1925, so this would certainly pre-date Gwen. The Teignmouth piece is stamped Grafton, which was in production from 1900. The tiny Ilfracombe pot, has ‘Arcadian’ on the bottom and the Ipswich jug is Coronet Ware, produced by Arkinstall and Sons. Both of these trademarks were in use from the 1920s, so this doesn’t help to establish who was the original collector.