Today (30th May), we made a delightful find on the site which we are currently excavating within the footprint of the Williams & Griffin store in the High Street at Colchester, and where we started work last Friday. We excavated a 19th-century brick-lined pit, within the plot of no 150 High Street. The pit was filled with coal and slag, perhaps representing waste from the iron foundry which once operated next door. Surprisingly, we recovered a large quantity of good-quality broken china from the pit, including an almost-complete nursery cup.
The nursery cup is white, glazed, and it is transfer-printed in black with words and pictures. From the position of the missing handle, around the top of the cup, the title of ‘THE HISTORY / OF THE HOUSE / THAT JACK B[uilt]’ is printed. Below ‘THE HISTORY’ is a milkmaid wearing a large bonnet and standing in a rustic scene with a grazing cow and with a cottage in the background. Below ‘OF THE HOUSE’ is one verse of the nursery rhyme. Below ‘THAT JACK B[uilt] is a young man in a torn coat with a church spire in the background. It looks as though he is supplicating the milkmaid, across the cup handle, but she is averting her face.
The verse reads:
‘… This is the Man all tattered
and torn that kissed the Maiden
all forlorn that milked the Cow
with the crumpled Horn
That tossed the Dog that worried
the Cat that killed the Rat that
eat the Malt that lay in the
House that Jack [built] …’
This is the eighth verse of the twelve-verse rhyme. ‘The history of the house that Jack built’ is a nursery rhyme which, apparently, first appeared in a printed source in 1755, although it may be 16th century in origin. It is a ‘cumulative’ tale with high educational value. Apparently, transferware was made by firing a ceramic vessel, and then applying the pattern to it using tissue paper on which the pattern had been printed – with the colour still wet – from an engraved copper plate. The paper was removed and the vessel was then glazed and fired again. We think that the cup is made of Staffordshire transferware, and that it dates to the early 19th century.
Some online research has produced not only an exact parallel for the cup, but also two related parallels. An identical cup and two related cups are both illustrated on the internet. It looks as though our cup would have been one of a set of educational nursery cups for children, each of which would have been printed with a different verse of the same nursery rhyme. The two related cups – both printed with the title ‘THE HISTORY / OF THE HOUSE / THAT JACK BUILT’ and appropriate pictures – present these verses, respectively:
‘… This is the Cow with the
crumpled Horn that tossed
the Dog that worried the
Cat that killed the Ra[t]
that eat the Malt
that lay in the House
that Jack built …’
‘… This is the Cock that crowed in the
morn that waked the Priest all shaven
and shorn that married the Man all
tattered and torn that kissed the
Maiden all forlorn that milked the Cow
with the crumpled Horn that tossed
the Dog that worried the Cat
that killed the Rat that eat the Malt
that lay in the House that Jack built …’
The set of nursery cups would have been bought for some privileged children to use and enjoy in their nursery.
No 150 High Street was, until recently, K D Radcliffe Ltd, the town’s well-known gunsmith and shooting and fishing supplies shop. The building is to be preserved. No 150 was once owned by Charles Tillett, hatter and glover, whose daughter Sarah Tillett married Francis Abell of 149 High Street in 1760. Their son, Francis Tillett Abell, was an attorney. In 1787, he inherited no 150 from his uncle William Tillett, and he probably used the building as his residence and as the premises of his legal practice. In 1804, as a ‘gentleman’ of St Runwald’s parish, he married Elizabeth Keep of St Martin’s parish. She died on the 1st January 1807. Francis Tillett Abell esq. served as the town’s mayor in 1810 and 1819. He died on the 25th May 1838, aged 74, and his will is held by the National Archives at Kew. It is possible that he had children and that these were, or included, Francis Gibbs Abell (an attorney in Colchester in 1848) and Charlotte Abell (died in Colchester in 1850). Perhaps Francis and Charlotte were the children who used the set of nursery cups…
The Trust’s excavations at the Williams & Griffin store are being funded by Fenwick Ltd.
The images show the cup at Roman Circus House today, in the condition in which it was excavated.
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