John Carr & Sons impress

Huge thanks to John Hotham for sharing the images below, showing a pair of verse plaques with the John Carr & Sons impressed mark.  Although the verses are relatively common, it is rare to find a pair with impressed marks.

The image below, from RC Bell's 'Tyneside Pottery' shows the detail of the impress.  The mark was used after 1846, when the Carr & Patton partnership dissolved at the North Shields Pottery (also called the Low Lights Pottery).

We can now lay to rest the suggestion that these plaques were made at the Middlesbrough Pottery.  The confusion arose because the plaques are found with a variation of the London mark with the number 18 above it, which RC Bell (see below right) attributes to Middlesbrough.  Click on the images to enlarge.

The transfer, mould and decoration of the London-marked plaque, are identical to those above with the Carr impress.  So London marks with the number 18 appear to have been used by both Middlesbrough (who to our knowledge never produced lustre items) and John Carr.