(4) Modern Spode Ceramic Mugs in Original Box. Matching blue and white designs. From Spode Italian. Marked on undersides, with labels on mugs and box. 

Size: 3 1/2 x 5 in. 

In 1770 Josiah Spode (1733-1797), who had trained under Thomas Whieldon, founded his own pottery company in Stoke-on-Trent, England, and is credited with having perfected two important techniques crucial to the boom in the English pottery and porcelain industry in the 19th Century: transfer printing on earthenware, and bone china. By 1784 Spode had set up a rapid-transfer system to print blue underglaze, launching the Blue Italian range of products in 1816 which has remained in production ever since. In 1790 he developed the formula for bone china, which his son, Josiah Spode II, successfully marketed after his father passed away seven years later, leaving him in control of the company. The company remained family-run until 1833 when it was purchased by a London alderman named William Taylor Copeland, who put his business partner Thomas Garrett in charge but retained the Spode name due to its already widespread popularity. In 1847 Garrett left the company, which was restructured as W.T. Copeland and Sons, and although a fire at Alexandra Palace in 1873 tragically destroyed thousands of specimens of early Josiah Spode work that had been on temporary exhibition, this also generated renewed interest in the origins of the famous manufacturer, and the company was renamed Copeland Spode to capitalize on this. Like most European companies they saw a significant decline in the 20th Century due to the World Wars and economic downturns, and in 1970 absorbed several companies to become Spode Ltd., but in 2006 Spode merged with Royal Worcester, one of their main remaining competitors in England only to be acquired two years later by Portmeirion Group, which transferred all Worcester production overseas and significantly consolidated the remaining manufacturing of Spode in Stoke-on-Trent. 

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