Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 22
Spode/Copeland Transfer-Printed Patterns Found at 20 Hudson's Bay Company Sites
by Lynne Sussman
The Association Between the Hudson's Bay Company and the
Spode/Copeland Company
The Spode/Copeland company was the commissioned supplier of ceramic
tableware and toiletware to the Hudson's Bay Company throughout most of
the 19th century and possibly for some time into the 20th century. The
following is an extract from a letter from the Hudson's Bay Company to
Copeland and Garrett, dated 17 December 1835. It marks the beginning of
the association between the two companies:
Your letter to Mr. Simpson of 28th ult, quoting the prices at
which you would supply the Hudsons Bay Co with Earthenware
&c has been submitted to the Governor and Committee, and I am
directed to acquaint you that the same has been accepted (Canada, Public
Archives, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, A.5/11, p. 130).
The earliest invoice for goods provided is dated 15 June 1836 (Whiter
1970: 233, n. 67) and the ceramics listed presumably reached North
America the same year. The contract continued throughout the changes in
company ownership and name: Copeland and Garrett, until 1847; W.T.
Copeland, 1847 to 1867, and W.T. Copeland and Sons, 1867 to the end of
the contract.
No documentary evidence has been found regarding the termination of
the contract with Spode/Copeland. In the United States, restrictions
upon the importation of British goods appear to have curtailed the
supply of Copeland ceramics to Hudson's Bay Company posts after the
1850s (Ross 1976: 261). Archaeological evidence, in the form of
date-marked pieces, has shown that Copeland was still supplying sizable
quantities of ceramics to Hudson's Bay Company posts in Canada in the
1870s. The amount of Copeland ceramics found at Canadian Hudson's Bay
Company sites declined in the 1880s and 1890s, and more variety in
ceramic wares and manufacturers is evident in material from these later
contexts. At some time during the 1880s or 1890s the Hudson's Bay
Company began to receive Copeland-made ceramics through the China Hall
of A.T. Wiley in Montreal (Collard: pers. com.). Hitherto, all Copeland
ceramics had been shipped directly from England to Hudson's Bay Company
points-of-entry (depots) and from there to the various posts. The latest
Copeland artifact found to date at a Hudson's Bay Company site was
manufactured between 1907 and 1937 and was supplied through the Wiley
company.
The type of ceramic supplied by Spode/Copeland to the Hudson's Bay
Company was almost invariably transfer-printed white earthenware, the
most popular ceramic of the 19th century. All of the patterns
illustrated in this catalogue were made using this decorative technique.
Briefly, the technique entails the following steps: 1) engraving the
pattern on a copper plate; 2) applying to the copper plate a pigment in
the form of a metallic oxide in an oil base; 3) printing the pattern
onto special paper; 4) transferring the design from the paper onto the
biscuit-fired ceramic object; 5) glazing, and 6) final firing which
vitrifies the glaze and transforms the metallic oxide pigment into the
desired colour.
Huge quantities of Spode/Copeland transfer-printed white earthenware
have been found at the 20 Hudson's Bay Company sites included in this
catalogue. In addition, a small amount of Spode/Copeland plain white
earthenware and an even smaller amount of its transfer-printed bone
china have also been recovered from these sites. Utilitarian articles of
stoneware or coarse earthenware, such as crocks, mixing bowls and baking
dishes, have never been made by the Spode/Copeland pottery. The
company specialized in manufacturing good quality tableware and
toiletware and its products account for the major portion of these wares
found at 19th-century Hudson's Bay Company sites.
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