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Recent additions.
Most recent at the top, so numbering starts at the bottom of the page!
6. Black glass wine, spirit or ale bottle with merchants seal. 1830s - 40s. July 2008.
A black glass wine, spirit or ale bottle from the 1830s, 40s or 50s, bearing a lower body seal marked 'F D / R', now in Darren's collection. The bottle was blown in a 3-piece mould, and has a sand pontil mark in the conical kick-up in the base.
The initials on the seal stand for Francis Dewick, Retford. The bottle was found on a 1920s dump in Retford in the mid 1980s, along with approximately 200 stoneware porter bottles dating from roughly 1830 to 1860. The majority of the stoneware was impressed 'F. Dewick / Retford' but some of the bottles were marked with the names of brewers and retailers from towns all over the east midlands including Doncaster, Bawtry, Worksop, Nottingham, Newark, Lincoln, and Tuxford. The whole group was probably a late clear out of a store room or cellar, quite possibly in Francis Dewick's former premises in Retford Market Square.
Francis Dewick established his wine and spirit merchant and grocery business in 1818 or 1819. In 1851 or '52 he took his son, John M. Dewick, into partnership. Francis died in 1862. This is the only black glass sealed bottle known from Retford.
5. Slab sealed Reform flask, Dante / Napoleon, 1840s. July 2008.
A slab sealed reform flask depicting a bust of Dante on one side and of Napoleon on the other, now in Jerry's collection.
Below the bust of Dante is a slab seal impressed 'CARTLEDGE / 297 LINCOLN'. This bottle was made at one of the Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire potteries, probably Oldfields of Chesterfield in the first half of the 1840s. Cartledge, a wine and spirit merchant in Lincoln in the first half of the 19th century, is well known among collectors for the wide range of overtly political reform flasks he used, all manufactured by Oldfield and which included two different types of Lord Brougham flasks (one identical in shape to the flask from Horncastle featured elsewhere on this website), as well as flasks depicting Lord Grey, Lord John Russell and William IVth. This is the first example of this flask recorded from Cartledge, and seems to be the first recorded proprietor-named Dante / Napoleon flask of any kind.
Above: The Cartledge flask alongside two others of similar design. On the right is another Dante / Napoleon flask, probably made at a London pottery. On the left is a very small Derbyshire/Nottinhamshire flask of similar shape to the Cartledge bottle but in a very dark salt glaze, and with the busts of a young Queen Victoria on one side, and Prince Albert on the other. This is the more common combination of busts on this style of flask, and dates to the 1840s (Victoria married Albert in 1841).
Why Dante and Napoleon?
The combination of Dante and Napoleon on decorative stoneware flasks is relatively common, although on other flasks the names of the two are usually impressed below the busts (such as the salt glazed flask in the picture above). The significance of Dante and Napoleon on these bottles may be related to the heroes identified by Thomas Carlyle in a series of lectures he gave in 1840, in which he praised 'Modern Revolutionism', saying that “We will hail the French Revolution, as shipwrecked mariners might the sternest rock, in a world otherwise all of baseless sea and waves”. In the lectures Dante, along with Shakespeare, was 'The Hero as Poet' and Napoleon (along with Cromwell) was 'The Hero as King'. The political aspects of Carlyles 'Heroes' seems to fit with Cartledge's choices of other political flasks (Brougham, Russell, etc) five to ten years earlier, in the 1830s.
4. Stoneware chemists bottles. 1820s - 30s. May 2008.
Small saltglaze bottles found in north Lincolnshire in April 2008. Less than half pint capacity, and only 140mm (5.5") tall. The initials stand for William Ostler Nicholson / Brigg. Three of these previously unrecorded little bottles came from one site. These are now in Darren's collection.
Nicholson is recorded as a Chemist, Druggist and Wine & Spirit Merchant in the Market Place in the Lincolnshire market town of Brigg in 1823 and 1827, but by 1834 the business was called Nicholson & Son. These bottles can be dated to an approximately ten year period from 1822 to, at the most, 1833.
This style of marking, with the use of initials for both the owner of the bottle and the town, in a similar fashion to the marks found on some types of glass sealed bottles of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, is only found on bottles dating to the first half of the 19th century or earlier, and seems to be particularly common in the Nottinghamshire - Lincolnshire - Yorkshire part of the country.
3. Dip moulded chemists bottle. circa 1790s - 1820. April 2008.
A dip moulded medicine or utility bottle, 16cm (6.5") tall. Black glass, with a sand or glass chip pontil mark and, from the style of the lip, probably dating to the very early 19th century. There are examples of this type of bottle that probably date as early as the 1760s or 70s. Ancestor of octagonal medicine bottles everywhere. Now in Jerry's collection.
2. Pontilled half-size Daffy's Elixir. 1820s - 30s. March 2008.
A half-size Daffy's Elixir bottle in aqua glass, with a rolled lip and solid pontil mark. This is a Dicey & Co example.
Daffy's Elixir was probably sold in bottles of this approximate shape for 100 years or more from the mid or late 18th century onwards, so accurately dating pontilled examples is difficult. Rolled lip or flared lip examples probably date to the 18th century or the first 40 years of the 19th century. Small examples (less than half pint capacity) in pale glass, such as this example, probably date to before 1845. This one is now in Jerry's collection.
1. Surgeon / apothecary bottle. 1830s - 40s. January 2008.
A beautiful early to mid 19th century salt glazed bottle, 18cm tall and approximately half pint capacity, now in Darren's collection. John Sowden was a surgeon in Louth, Lincolnshire from the 1830s to the 1870s. The style of this bottle dates it to the very early part of that time, almost certainly pre-1850.
All contents of this page Copyright J. Kemp and D. Gray, 2007 & 2008.
Page last updated 8th July 2008
