Grandmother’s Teapot …

Shortly after I married in 1979, my aunt passed on to me a silver teapot which had belonged to my grandmother. At the time, she told me that it was not a valuable piece, but that it had been well-used in her childhood home. My aunt was quite fastidious when it came to making a cup of tea. There was a definite ritual which had to be followed, which involved warming both the pot and the teacups prior to use, and using only freshly boiled water. I imagine she learned this ritual as a child from my grandmother.

  My grandmother Eve Pilkington (seated) presiding over

                                     afternoon tea on the verandah of her home “Ennisvale”.

   Pilkington Family Collection. 1908, digital image, personal collection.

While making a cup of tea in my household today involves simply tossing a teabag into a cup of boiling water, it wasn’t always like this. Ever since the 17^th century when tea was introduced to the Western world by the Dutch East India Company, the ‘pot of tea’ has been integral to family meals and social occasions. For generations, people have celebrated life and shared troubles over a cup of tea. Whether it was a finely crafted silver vessel used for special occasions, a humble ceramic pot for everyday use, or even a tin billy over an outback campfire, the teapot and its contents was part of the ritual of daily life.

Grandmother’s teapot, 2017, digital image, personal collection

My oval-shaped teapot stands 14 cm tall. It is wider at the base, measuring 14.5cm x 12cm, and tapering to 12cm x 9cm across the top. The lid has a concealed hinge and an oval-shaped ivory finial on top. The sides are decorated with crossed branches of foliage, one with a butterfly and the other with a bird in flight. The lid is encircled by a wreath of foliage. The spout is fluted and tapers to a plain opening, with evidence of a soldered repair at the base. The hollow handle has a squared top incorporating a thumb rest for ease of pouring, and contains tiny holes at the top and bottom to dissipate heat. To minimise transition of heat, the handle is constructed with two expanders made of an unknown black material which I first thought was Bakelite. However, Bakelite was not invented until 1907, and I think my teapot is older than that. Some of the silver plating has worn off where the handle is gripped, and there is a small spot of corrosion on top of the handle. Two small dents and a superficial scratch on one side indicate that the teapot may have been dropped at some time.

Grandmother’s teapot, top view, 2017, digital image, personal collection

Grandmother’s teapot, Base markings, 2017, digital image, personal collection

The base of the teapot contains markings stamped into the metal. The first is what I initially thought to be the number ‘6’. In American silverware, this is a standard measurement for teapots, indicating a capacity of six half-pints = 1800ml. Besides the fact that my teapot is English, it only has a capacity of 1200ml so I knew this couldn’t be what the mark meant. On enlarging the photograph, it became evident that the mark was the number ‘5’, but as capacity this would equate to 1500ml; again not correct, unless it indicates capacity as five standard tea-cups. Another possibility is that as a mass-produced piece, this could be the journeyman’s mark, stamped on as a means of identifying how many pieces were made by a particular worker.

Foy & Gibson was a department store which first opened in Collingwood, Victoria in 1883. The Western Australian branch was opened in 1895 at 765 Hay St, Perth.
The number ‘2080’ is a pattern number, and was used to identify the design in sales catalogues. Pattern numbers were required to be registered, and would allow accurate dating of manufacture. I was unable to find any on-line listing of registered pattern numbers.
Made in England. The process of electroplating was first patented in England in 1840, and made silver tableware affordable for the growing middle classes. It involved applying a thin layer of silver over a base metal through the process of electrolysis. The industry became established around Birmingham and Sheffield in England, with numerous companies producing silver plated items that were usually marked with the letters EPNS (electro-plated nickel silver, plated onto a base alloy of copper, zinc and nickel) or EPBM (electro-plated Brittania metal, plated onto a base alloy of tin, antimony and copper). Each company stamped its products with its own registered maker’s mark.


My teapot contains no maker’s mark and is not stamped as EPNS. The wear on the handle and absence of hall marks makes me confident that it is silver plated. I suspect that it is probably the cheaper EPBM, due to the grey colour of the base metal showing through the worn handle. My conclusion is that it was a mass-produced piece made exclusively for Foy & Gibson by an unidentified manufacturer, in the late 1890’s or early 1900’s.

There is a picture of a similar style teapot in Foy & Gibson’s 1902 catalogue, advertised for 24 shillings.  According to the Reserve Bank calculator, this would equate to $166.46 in today’s terms.

Victorian silver plated teapot. Source: Foy & Gibson 1902 Winter catalogue, University of Melbourne Library Digital Collections accessed 2 May 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/21263

I have speculated on how the teapot may have come into my grandmother’s possession. I know that she lived in Perth between 1901 and 1904, initially housekeeping for her brother and then after he married working as a housekeeper for others. Did she buy the teapot herself to add to her ‘glory box’ in anticipation of one day keeping her own house? Or perhaps it was a departure gift from a grateful employer when she returned to Victoria in 1904. Another possibility is that it was sent by her brother as a wedding gift when she married in 1907.


In terms of resale today, I don’t think the teapot has any monetary value. Similar Victorian teapots which include a maker’s mark are advertised on eBay for $30-$50. However, the value of the teapot to me lies in the connection it provides to the grandmother I never knew, who died only a few months before I was born.

This article was written in 2017 for assessment as part of the unit 'Place, Image, Object' in University of Tasmania's Diploma of Family History.

Getting to know Grandma

Evelyn Maude Dewar 1907

This is my beautiful grandmother, Evelyn Maud Pilkington (nee Dewar).  I never met her or knew her because she died just seven months before I was born.  I was given her name as my second name, an honour which was completely lost on me as a child.  Evelyn was not a name in popular usage during the 1960’s & 70’s, and I tried everything to disown it.  Why, oh why couldn’t I have been given a perfectly normal second name like Anne or Elizabeth, the second names of my sisters? 

My father’s family consisted of a large, extended network of 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins with whom we maintain close ties to this day.  But I don’t recall my father speaking of his parents very much – and I, thoughtless child that I was, never thought to ask about them while I had the opportunity. 

Eve was born in Rye, Victoria in 1874.  She was the youngest of eight children of James and Margaret Dewar.  The family had moved from Geelong in about 1871, with James working as a lime-burner in the kilns at Rye. Sometime after Eve was born, likely around 1877, James was appointed the manager of a new lime venture along the southern coast at Waratah Bay.  So the family moved to the remote location where the little township of Waratah (now Walkerville) sprang up in response to the demand for lime. 

This was where Eve grew up, among the bush and beside the sea.  The settlement was only accessible by sea, and the community relied on the coastal steamers which plied the Victorian coast for all their requirements. Occasionally, Eve would travel on the steamer on its voyage east, being dropped home again on the return journey. 

Somehow, she acquired a small butterfly tattoo on her ankle, something which she apparently took great care to hide in her later years. 

As a young woman, Eve spent 4 years in Western Australia, where she went to housekeep for her brother Ted.  When she returned to Waratah after Ted’s marriage, she met my grandfather Charles Osburne Pilkington, who had recently arrived from Ireland to join his brothers in a farming venture at nearby Sandy Point.  They married in 1907.

When I was about nineteen, my father retired and my parents moved house.  Among the boxes which accompanied them was one containing a pile of old notebooks – my grandmother’s diaries!  I remember my mother saying dismissively, “Oh those old things – there’s nothing in there of any interest, all she talks about is the weather and what they ate for dinner.”  So the box of diaries was relegated to the back of a cupboard where they remained for the next 30 years, only being rediscovered when we cleared out Mum’s house after she passed away.

I took the box home with me, thinking I should have a look before just tossing them out.  And then I spent the next few weeks getting to know my grandma!  Yes, she started each days entry with the weather, and yes, she often commented on what they ate, but along with that was a wonderful treasure trove of her thoughts and feelings, friendships, family occasions and much more.

Through her diaries I learned of her anguish at losing her beautiful little baby – see A Little Bush Grave.  I read of her hopes and worries for her other children, my father and his two sisters, her heartache when  her beloved Carl, my grandfather, died in 1947.  I discovered a family rift I’d never heard about and how much that upset her, her joy when her children married, and when the first grandchildren came along.  Then her struggle to maintain the house and garden on her own as she aged, the inevitable decision to leave the home my grandfather had built for her, and her reliance on the kindness and generosity of family friends.  Throughout it all, her strong faith was evident, and her belief that the good and bad were all part of God’s plan must have helped sustain her through the difficult times.  Her last diary entry was just a few days before she died.

I now have a connection with my grandma that goes beyond sharing her name, and I know I would have loved her.

Eve & Charlie Pilkington

THE LEAVING

Eve stood in the doorway for the last time. She’d first come here as a bride 45 years ago. Built by her beloved Carl, it was a simple country house, weatherboard walls and corrugated iron roof containing a lifetime of memories. A widow now for five years, she knew it was time to go, but oh! the leaving was hard.

She wandered through the rooms, pausing here and there as memories arose. There was the old range, which had cooked so many meals for family and friends. There the cosy fireplace, around which cold winter evenings were spent. She remembered the musical evenings shared with the other families, and church services, held when the visiting minister made his rounds. Over here, the little room which had been classroom for the children before the men had built the school.

Standing on the verandah, scene of many summer gatherings, she looked out over her garden. It had become too much for her to manage on her own. The yard was sheltered by big cypress trees, planted by the children on a long ago Arbour Day as protection from the fierce easterly winds.

Her eyes were drawn to the path leading into the bush. Never again would she visit the little wooden cross marking the burial place of her darling baby.

Eve knew she would never return to this house. If she came back, it would be as a guest of neighbouring relatives. Resolutely, she picked up her bag and walked out the gate to the waiting car. No more was this home.

© Katrina Vincent 2016. Written for “Writing Family History” unit, University of Tasmania.

"Ennisvale", Sandy Point.

A Little Bush Grave…

 

ERIC HASTINGS PILKINGTON

August 1911 – 24 May 1912

One spring day last year, during a weekend at my family home in Sandy Point, I went on one of my customary walks around the area.  Sandy Point is a quiet little settlement on Victoria’s southern coastline, tucked in the shadow of Wilson’s Promontory.  Come summer, it is a bustling holiday centre, but in early spring the few permanent residents share their home with just the local birds and wildlife, and the pristine beach is almost deserted.  This is how I love it.

 

Walking along Ryan’s Rise, I stopped to pick a bunch of the fragrant white freesias which grew thickly along the roadside and into the grounds of the neighbouring empty holiday homes.  A lady coming towards me walking her dog paused to exchange a greeting and a comment on my task.

 

“They’re lovely, aren’t they,” she said. “ You know they are supposed to have come from a baby’s grave?” 

 

“Yes” I replied, “I do know that…”

Ryan's Rise, Sandy Point
© Katrina Vincent 2015

104 years ago today, little Eric Hastings Pilkington, not quite 9 months old, succumbed to pneumonia and passed away.  In due course, he was laid to rest in a little bush grave lovingly prepared by his father, my grandfather.  A wooden frame surrounded by a strong wire fence was built to mark the spot, and buffalo grass planted in the newly-turned soil.  When my grandmother recovered from the same illness, she planted freesia bulbs from her own garden at the gravesite. 

The site was chosen on Crown bushland adjoining my grandparents home, easily reached by a meandering track from the house.  Over the ensuing years, the freesias and buffalo grass naturalised and spread so that 50 years later, when the Crown land was sold to developers and subdivided for holiday sites, no trace remained of the exact location of the little grave.   My father estimated that the road was constructed over the actual gravesite.

Some months after baby Eric’s death, my grandmother recorded the following in her diary.  Her writing indicates her desire to keep little Eric’s memory alive, and I hope that my tribute will help to preserve this little piece of history.

© Katrina Vincent 2015

 

September 6^th 1912:  In writing this diary I am not pledging myself to write daily or even weekly –     perhaps not monthly. Sometimes life goes on uneventfully for months at a time – at other times events crowd thick and fast, and some of them one wants to remember and if some record is not kept, time dims them and in trying to think back, one is amazed & often sorry to find that much that would have been better remembered has grown faint in ones memory. It might be so with the little life that came into existence in Aug of 1911 & passed away to God again on May 24^th 1912, & left such a blank in our lives, we miss him so sadly.  Sometimes I think the pain grows greater as time goes on.  He is never out of my thoughts & some days I have many sad hours & I yearn for him though I know everything that we could give him on earth would be as nothing compared with the full life of Eternity into which he entered almost before his life here was really begun.  He was such a joy such a bonny sturdy brown-eyed smiling little son.  Even through his illness he did not waste at all as our darling Haughton did.  So much that I did not see - the others have told me of spasms of pain & suffering & how for three hours before he died his eyes were fixed above. My little lamb – I was ill when he was dying & strange hands did everything for him.  My last recollection is of the day after Nurse came, 22^nd Wednesday, lying in the cot beside my bed with his beautiful brown eyes wide open & his wee hands playing with the fringe of his shawl. The pneumonia had left him then & we all thought he was getting better but God had other plans & that night he changed & sank gradually.  I did not miss him fully until after Belle went home & then oh shall I ever forget the empty rooms & the silences. Haughton was such a mouse in those days, the eruptions on his hands & feet keeping him chained to the couch & I was weak & Carl anything but well, but thank God, we are all in good health once more & Haughton the greatest comfort to us & as merry & chattery as we could wish him. He is so interested in thinking & speaking of Eric in heaven & I want always to keep him in his mind. Eric was within a week of nine months when he went away & was such a big boy. His eyes always had a smile in them & his hair was a sunny brown & was just beginning to curl & he had four little pearly teeth. Some people think that children develop in Heaven but I like to think of him always as my darling brown-eyed baby. I have a great deal of comfort in my deepest grief in knowing that he is safe with Jesus who loves the children & when He was on earth used them to illustrate some of His most beautiful sermons.

"Family Notices" The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954) 25 May 1912: 5. Web. 24 May 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197359089>.