New Chelsea China

by Howard Marsden-Hughes
(Tingewick, Buckingham, England (UK))

RE. New Chelsea China. Noted your comments about New Chelsea backstamp. I am informed by a member of the Plant family that Chelsea was created in 1936. It was used as a "seconds" company for using up imperfect blanks that were not up to snuff for Plant's own use. The reason for this was the quantity of less than perfect glazed ware that was caused through high production volumes of commemoratives for the proposed Coronation of Edward VIII. Plant produced a lot of commemoratives and had a full page advert in the Pottery and Glassware Trade Gazette in 1936. Interestingly, the first advert for New Chelsea is also in the Pottery Gazette at the same period and is for an Edward Coronation item. I have long suspected that Grosvenor was similarly used, but by Copeland Spode, as they feature a design that is only found on Spode commemoratives for Edward's reign.

Do your readers know any more about this?

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Dear Howard,

This is priceless information for any collector of New Chelsea. I am happy to publish it on our site and hope that we get other contributors to add to the history.

Best regards,

Tony.
Admin