Copeland (Shire Library)

For 133 years five successive generations of the Copeland family continued to run the Spode Pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, staffordshire, carrying on the tradition of quality and design which had been begun by Josiah Spode I and his son Josiah Spode II. As fashion and style changed throughout the Victorian and Edwardian era, the firm was at the forefront of the market, with a team of artists who produced a variety of ware ranging from simple menu holders, through household ware to fine hand-painted dessert services. The work of some of the best known artists is illustrated in this book, which also provides the reader with backstamps dating the ware and a short description of some of the most famous pieces of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It includes illustrations of Copeland Statuary Porcelain, jewelled ware, fine china, and earthenware and of royal commissions, and it concludes with examples of everyday patterns which are easily collected today.