Printed earthenware from Goodwin's Seacombe Pottery (illustration 4) was of low-to-medium priced quality, much of it heavily potted and obviously intended for the country trade. Printed wares, however, had a universal appeal and were found in city as well as in farm homes. A table service in this pattern, made by the Staffordshire firm of Francis Morley & Co., was used in the principal's residence at McGill University in MontrÄal in the 1850s. William Dawson and his wife (later Sir William and Lady Dawson) brought the service with them from Nova Scotia when they came to McGill in 1855.
Most often printed patterns were purely fanciful but sometimes, as here, they were adapted from published engravings. The view of the ChaudiÅre Bridge near QuÄbec on this plate from the Dawson service was taken from a steel engraving (illustration 6) which appeared in Canadian Scenery by N.P. Willis, with illustrations by the English topographical artist William Henry Bartlett. Though tablewares with Canadian views were sold in Canada, such printed patterns represented only a very small part of the vast bulk of printed earthenware in use in Canadian homes. This multiscene pattern (i.e. different views on the various articles of a table service) was also sold in Great Britain and the United States. Bartlett gave to all his views a certain wished-for glamour; in England, Canadian scenes from Bartlett had the romantic attraction of faraway places.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S81-3)
