With thanks to Gillian Cunningham, (a lovely local lady with a flair for seeking out antiques!) who kindly shared these photos with the page.
Gillian said, “I acquired this plate and thought of you! It’s a Minton c1880s ‘Blantyre’ Pattern”. I suggested that it may have been a pattern commissioned for a previous Lord Blantyre? Wanting to know more, Gillian decided to write to the city archivist in the town where she bought it from. A few days later she had this reply.
“Thank you for your enquiry. I’m afraid that the archive contains no information on the process of pattern naming. Many thousands of patterns were produced and many hundreds were named. An internet search revealed that there was a specific backstamp with a registered design number for Blantyre. This is for October 1873.
I would suggest that Blantyre occurred as a name because of the prominence the town would have received as David Livingstone’s birthplace, 1873 being the year of his death. This is pure speculation on my part and nothing in the design suggest any directly commemorative purpose. I think it just that in looking for names that were short and had what one might call feelgood associations, in 1873 Blantyre would have easily come to mind. However, as I say above, there is nothing within the archive to support this hypothesis.”
Do you know more about the plate? Or where the rest of the set could be bought?!
Featuring Blantyre Project Social Media with permission. Strictly not for use by others on or offline, our visitors said,:
Hello, I found an item in a thriftshop in the Netherlands today, allso with the Blantyre decor on it, but decorated in one colour and a C monogram in the middle. Thought you might like it, if you want I can send some pictures? Its allso from Minton, but allso has a mark on the back from Paris.
Greetings from the Netherlands, Anneke Groothoff.
Hi Anneke – Thank you. my friend collects these sort of things and I think she would be interested in it. Would love to see some photos. Thanks.