Packaged in Pottery
W. P. Hartley jar (Shelley Thomas).
When Shelley Thomas headed out to the beach in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, she had no idea that she would come home with one of her favorite beach finds ever. “It’s an earthenware jar that was poking through a cliff along a bit of rough beach.
W. P. Hartley jar (Shelley Thomas).
A quick search online suggests this pot is over a hundred years old, a relic of W. P. Hartley of London and Liverpool, 1870s,” Shelley says. According to her online research, Sir William Pickles Hartley, a grocer, began making jam near Pendle, Lancashire, in 1871. In 1874, he moved his business to Bootle, Liverpool, and began producing jams, marmalades, and jellies. In 1884, the business incorporated as William Hartley & Sons Limited. Her favorite part? “Its logo is a lighthouse! COOL!”
J. Ladd’s ginger beer (Bilby). Nicholls’ ginger beer (Collection of Auckland Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira). E.S. Shapley ginger beer (Partonez).
Pottery and ceramics have been used to store products for millennia. Greeks stored and transported valuable liquids in amphorae, and Native Americans used earthenware pottery to make, store, and serve food. And cultures around the world used pottery jars and bottles to store, transport, and sell liquids of all sorts.
Caribbean stoneware jars (Ky Davis ).
Before the advent of modern packaging, ceramics were used as product packages, for everything from foods to cosmetics. One of the great things about this packaging is that it can sometimes stand up to the waves enough so that beachcombers can still read the markings on the package, which makes it possible to identify where it came from.
Jodie Greene.
Beer Bottles
Erven Lucas Bols stoneware gin bottle (Museum Rotterdam). Shard of Bols gin bottle found in Curaçao (Kirsti Scott). Van Zuylenkom stoneware bottle (Ky Davis ).
Wave-worn shards from Bols gin bottles found in Curaçao (Kirsti Scott).
Household Lotions and Potions
Holloway’s ointment shard and jar,“Poor Man’s Friend” beach-found and marble-filled jars. (Katie Fowlie, Scottish Beach Finds, scottishbeachfinds.etsy.com).
Beach-found container shards from Scotland: Andrew Hutchison Beer from Leven, Fife. Victorian “Bear Grease” hair growth ointment pot from the 1820s. Ammonia bottle from Edinburgh. Ginger Beer Bottle from Kirkcaldy, Scotland. (Katie Fowlie, Scottish Beach Finds, scottishbeachfinds.etsy.com).
Water Filters
Sea pottery found in the Caribbean (Ky Davis ). 19th-century English stoneware water filter by Slack & Brownlow.
Sea pottery found in the Caribbean (Ky Davis ). 19th-century Cheavin’s stoneware filter.
This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 41 March/April 2024.
