Early 1900’s English Co-Operative Wholesale Society Limited Flow Blue Dinner Plates - a Pair

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Early 1900’s English Co-Operative Wholesale Society Limited Flow Blue 9 3/4” Dinner Plates - a Pair.

These rare Victorian plates … Read more Early 1900’s English Co-Operative Wholesale Society Limited Flow Blue 9 3/4” Dinner Plates - a Pair.

These rare Victorian plates are in very good preloved condition with no major imperfections including cracks, crazing or repairs. One plate has three small chips on the backside as seen in the photos.

The Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd (CWS) manufactured Bone China at the Windsor Pottery, Edensor Road, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England.

Previously the Windsor Pottery was operated by Hill & Co.

There appears to have been some discrepancy in the start date for the CWS, or an overlap in manufacturing, as Hill & Co are recorded as closing in 1920 and the CWS are recorded as starting in 1911.

In 1971 the business was sold to Hammersley and Co (Longton) Ltd. who ran the works as a separate business under the name 'Royal Windsor'.

The Co-operative Society produced commemorative ware for a number of Co-op branches and districts - generally to celebrate Gala and Anniversary events.

This commemorative ware tends to use a back stamp of the logo of a wheat sheaf and the motto 'Labor and Wait'. Both of these plates have this logo.

The CWS are recorded as starting in 1911 ('Encyclopedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks' Geoffrey Godden) - although some CWS ware was made for events at least as early as 1906. It may be that pottery manufacture started before 1911 or that the Co-op had this ware made for them by others. However the use of the town name LONGTON, which is where the Co-op pottery factory was located, perhaps indicates that the ware was made by the Co-op themselves.

The Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd (CWS) logo of a wheat sheaf and the motto 'Labor and Wait' was used as a makers mark.

Labor is spelt without the 'U' in the American style.

This was quite intentional. The CWS was progressive in the liberal tradition, they were supporters of the Union in the American Civil War and were anti-slavery, and reflected this by taking their motto from the US poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, 'A Psalm for Life'.

The last verse of the poem reads:

'Let us, then, be up and doing/ With a heart for any fate/Still achieving, still pursuing/ Learn to labor and to wait.'

The Pattern on the Plate is very similar to R. Hammersley & Son 1884, Cambridge Flow Blue Pattern which dates to 1905.

Each Plate measures 9.75” Wide x 1” Tall. They each weigh 1 pound 5.4 ounces or 21.41 ounces or 606 grams. See less