Royal Crown Derby mark

How to read it

William Chaffers’s catalogue (1912 edition) describes the old mark as a crown above a cross with three dots in each side angle and a capital D below, used by the Duesburys from about 1780 and continued by Robert Bloor as late as 1830, usually in red but sometimes in blue or violet. Llewellynn Jewitt (1878) says it was painted by hand until Bloor dropped it, about 1825 or 1830, for printed marks with his own name. The old works in Nottingham Road closed in 1848. A new company, the Crown Derby Porcelain Company, built a factory on the site of the old workhouse in Osmaston Road, and in 1890, by permission of Queen Victoria, added the word Royal to its name and altered its mark.

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Cross, swords or daggers

Writers name the crossed lines under the crown differently. Chaffers calls them a cross in one entry and crossed daggers in another, and Jewitt calls them crossed swords in one place and cross daggers in another. The likeness to the Meissen crossed swords is closer than it looks: Chaffers records that Derby also used the Meissen swords on some services, and imitations of the Sèvres mark on late pieces of the Bloor period.

When the new company began

The dates differ by two years. Chaffers says the new factory started in 1877. The Derbyshire Historic Environment Record also gives 1877, says the company was first known as Derby Crown Porcelain Co., and says the workhouse building was converted into the porcelain works in 1879. Frederick Litchfield’s guide gives 1875 for the company and describes its mark as a D in reversed ciphers under a crown. Jewitt, writing in 1876, reports works about to be set up on Osmaston Road by Edward Phillips of the Worcester porcelain works.

The King Street mark

A second Derby works kept the old mark alive. Chaffers says Locker & Co. opened a factory in King Street in 1849, after the Nottingham Road works closed. Jewitt says that in 1862, at his own suggestion, its owners Stevenson and Hancock began using the old crown, crossed daggers, dots and D with their initials S H, which Sampson Hancock continued because they were also his own initials. Chaffers’s 1912 editor adds that Hancock’s business had no connection with the Royal Crown Derby company. The Derbyshire record says Royal Crown Derby bought the King Street works in 1935.