Scrapbook Saturday: "Family Heirloom"

For my Scrapbook Saturday challenge today (see here) I’ve chosen the topic “Family Heirloom”. This is a Maling Pottery bowl which was owned by my late Father-in-Law’s Aunt. It’s a coincidence that, even though the family lived in Cheshire (where my wife was brought up), she owned this pottery which was made in Newcastle upon Tyne – and then my wife married me, a Geordie, and we live in Newcastle!
 
To give a sense of scale, this very pretty bowl is just over 9 inches across to the top.
 
Maling pottery was produced in the northeast of England for nearly 2 centuries, from 1792 to 1963. It was started by a French family called “Malin”; they were Protestant Huguenots who fled to England in the sixteenth century to escape the threat of religious persecution (at some stage the surname was anglicised by the addition of the final “g”). The factory began in Sunderland but transferred to Newcastle in 1817; at one stage it was claimed to be the biggest pottery in Britain, occupying a 14 acre site. The pottery went up-market in the 1890s and their porcelain was even sold by shops such as Harrods.

Competition from more modern and streamlined potteries eventually resulted in the factory closing in 1963.