‘Tuscan China’ tea pot

c. 1920

Mellor Collection, Otago Museum (Image copyright, Otago Museum, Dunedin)

Unpublished

This ‘Tuscan China’ tea pot was donated by Emma Mellor to the Otago Museum in the 1950s and was made by R.H. and S.L. Plant (Ltd) in the town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent in about the 1920s. The Plant family had been active in the Staffordshire pottery industry since about 1775 but their business was founded in 1878. They used white china clay to produce their ‘Tuscan China’ range with about 30,000 different patterns emerging over the years. The company traded until the late 1960s when it was absorbed by the Wedgwood group.