Object Description
Each cooler is relief moulded with a portrait of Admiral Viscount Nelson in full uniform and medals between two acorn bearing oak boughs on one side and a naval panoply on the reverse. The rims comprise tied reeds and twin dolphin-mask handles. Fitted with metal liners and marked on the bases ‘Davenport’ with an anchor, one with a paper label stating ‘Exceedingly rare (Lockett) Hanley Museum, No.1721’
English, circa 1815.
John Davenport (1765-1848) trained as a potter with Thomas Wolfe of Stoke, Staffordshire in 1785. By 1794 he had founded his own pottery factory counting the Prince of Wales among his customers. After Davenport’s retirement in 1830, his firm carried on under various family members until it was acquired by Burleigh Pottery in 1887.