For an overview of maritime plaques, click on the Maritime heading above.  Click on images to enlarge.

The above plaque shows the Atlantic cable-laying ship, Agamemnon, in a storm.  The second link below (from which I obtained the right image) gives an eye-witness account of the storm which lasted for more than a week.  
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Agamemnon_(1852)

http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Cables/1857-58Atlantic/

This plaque is an enigma.  It is crudely modelled and decorated and has an over-glaze transfer (why?) of a subject associated with 20th century reproductions from Gray's Pottery (see right, produced 1934–61), and yet it has a 'Dixon Co' impressed mark.

This pair of plaques came up on eBay sometime around 2005, and now reside in different collections. 'Earl Leicester' (above) might relate to the Elizabethan nobleman, Robert Dudley, who had a ship called the 'Galleon Leicester'. The plaque below, 'Laura Ann', has the 'Dixon Co' impress.  It is unclear whether the pottery sold these plaques as blanks for decoration, or whether someone at the pottery decorated them to order. See the Plaques with hand-painted text page for several Dixon-type plaques decorated to order in the 1850s and 60s.

The illustration is titled 'THE GIGANTIC CLIPPER-SHIP "GREAT AUSTRALIA" RECENTLY BUILT FOR MESSRS. BAINES AND CO. OF LIVERPOOL,' from The Illustrated London News, December 1860.

Both plaques have the circular Albion Pottery impressed mark, with G&A in the centre.  Galloway and Atkinson used this mark from c1864. The left plaque has a firing crack and glaze imperfections. It was therefore left undecorated and sold as a factory second. The right plaque is of an unusually large circular form. Both plaques have the thick borders that became fashionable in the 1860s (see Plaque dates).

Click here to read about plaques with similar untitled transfers.

This transfer was used as a stock image to represent a historical ship, but with several different titles.  Commerce and Union appear most frequently, and these are included on the less common ships sub-page.

HMS Resolution  began life as the collier 'Marquis of Granby', launched at Whitby in 1770.  She was purchased by the Royal Navy the following year and fitted with the most advanced technology of the day, including an Azimuth Compass, ice anchors and apparatus for distilling fresh water from sea water. On 21 June 1772, Resolution left Sheerness on Captain James Cook's second voyage of discovery.  On 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to cross the Antartic Circle.  In February 1776 she was recommissioned for Cook's third voyage of discovery and crossed the Artic Circle on 17 August 1778.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolution_(1771)

Skinner Auctioneers' description read: 'the name "Robert Cockerton" over a ship flanked by cornucopias'. I've never yet seen this transfer on a pink lustre plaque.

Two plaques by Moore & Co.  They have the same transfer but the right plaque is titled 'Shortening Sail Off Helgoland'.  Helgoland (or Heligoland) is a small German archipelago in the North Sea, which was ruled by Britain between 1807 and 1890 (see Wikipedia).  The plaques were likely made around the 1840s.  There is a signature visible above the word 'Helgoland' in the title.  This also appears on the untitled version, but on both plaques is too small to read. 

The Star of Tasmaniawas built in 1856 at the Alexander Hall shipyard in Aberdeen.  The clipper was 632 tons and belonged to the White Star Company.  She was regarded as one of the fastest ships of her day completing a number of trips from London to New Zealand and Australia. In 1868, after 7 voyages to Dunedin, she was driven ashore loading wool at Oamuru.  Her wreck was sold for £40 and her wool for £1360 to a company at Oamuru.  The full story below.

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Bre01Whit-t1-body-d105.html

'1.92m-high pine figure from bow of the Star of Tasmania was found in the 1950s blocking a hole in a hedge on an Oamaru farm. It was sold at an auction by Sotheby's for £14,400 ($NZ42,000) to an undisclosed buyer.'

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzbound/figurehead.htm

The SS London was launched in 1864, but came to an 'unfortunate' end when it sank in the Bay of Biscay on January 11th, 1866. The ship was overladen with 239 passengers and too much cargo. Only 19 people survived. This disaster encouraged Parliament, many years later, to introduce the Plimsoll line.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_London_(1864)

HMS Volage was launched at Portsmouth on 19 February 1825.  She was a 28-gun ship, and saw service in the Battle of Chuanbi (against China) in the first Opium War of 1839–42, before becoming a survey ship in 1847. She was converted to a powder hulk for the army in 1864, and broken up at Chatham in 1877.

An unusual plaque with green corners attributed to Scott of Southwick.  She the May peace and plenty page for other plaques with coloured corners.

Two plaques attributed to John Carr, North Shields. Though these transfers commonly appear on bowls and jugs, it is rare to find them on plaques. Read more here and here. N.B.the first transfer differs from similar common ship transfers in that it has a triangular sail at the rear.  The second transfer is similar to those which appear on Albion Pottery plaques with the verse May peace and plenty.

The above plaque has the impressed mark 'Dixon Co'.  This transfer is again more commonly found on bowls etc than it is on plaques.