Under the loosely used heading "brownware" came a multitude of dishes, bowls, etc., which might have appeared on the dinner tables of the unsophisticated or of the poor for such wares were cheap but which were relegated to kitchen use in a sophisticated household. They were of a coarse red or buff- coloured earthenware body or of a coarse stoneware normally called "brown stoneware" in contemporary Canadian advertisements. Sometimes the colour of the body was merely intensified by a clear glaze or, at other times, was glazed to a brown colour, as was this "parted tray." Decoration, if any, was in white or cream-coloured slip (clay diluted to the consistency of thick cream). Much of the brownware used in Canada originated in Sunderland. An 1896 price list from the Wear Pottery, Sunderland, lists parted trays at three to ten shillings per dozen (wholesale), according to size. The potter's dozen was variable, but in the 1896 list, twelve articles to the dozen were specified. The tray shown here came from the Manor House at Murray Bay, Quebec, and is English-made. Precise dating, however, would be impossible: trays like this were produced before the Victorian period and were still being made in England well into the present century.
Canadian potters made brownware, but those working near port cities had stiff competition from British potters. One Quebec City sale for brownware in 1839 offered "47,348 PIECES" (dishes, milk pans, basins), all just arrived from England and to be sold on the wharf.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S81-4)
