Friday 19 April 2019

A Mancunian pilot and plane from the Great War ….. stories of porcelain


We are a full century and a bit on from the Great War, and I find it remarkable that so much of the ephemera from that conflict has survived.

Leaving aside the big stuff, like tanks, aircraft and memorials, it is the little things like postcards, letters and pictures along with medals which have survived in large numbers.

In the usual run of these things many would have been lost, destroyed, or so damaged that they were eventually discarded.

Now I know these items once counted in thousands, but the passage of over 100 years was never going to be kind to many of them.

And of these it is the crested porcelain figures which I would have thought were most likely to have been doomed.

Afterall they are fragile, easily chipped or broken and so should not have survived in such great numbers.

All of which brings me to this fine example, which I rather like.

It belongs to my old friend David Harrop and arrived at his home today.

His crested china collection includes everything from bull dogs, battle ships, tanks and ambulances, but this is the first aircraft I have seen.

The porcelain companies had switched with the outbreak of war to making themed war pieces and with an eye to sales added the crests of towns and cities, making the pieces just hat been more attractive and novel.

It worked up to a point but in the case of the battle ship HMS Manchester it fell short of reality, because during the Great War the Royal Navy had no such ship in service.

Still I doubt that commercial interests or that of patriotism was ever going to get in the way of delivering a piece of war porcelain which would sell we…

Picture; crested chine aircraft, circa the Great War, courtesy of David Harrop




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