Pair of William Adams and Sons Blue and White Damascus Pattern Earthenware Plates. Depicting Middle Eastern scenes on the front with ornate floral borders. Marked on bottoms. Likely mid 20th Century transferware based on clarity, condition, and the style of the marks. 

Size: 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. 

In 1657 Robert Adams and his son John of Hadderridge and Brick House established the Brickhouse Potteries in Burslem, England. They soon became known as some of the finest manufacturers of earthenware in the country, and later began to make Basalts, Jasper, and Parian ware at additional facilities in Tunstall and Stoke-on-Trent. The Adams family had been synonymous with pottery manufacture in the North Staffordshire Potteries since the 15th Century, but a great deal of confusion still abounds over ownership and origin of many of their productions as there were ten different descendents named William Adams who, over three centuries, each plied their hand at the family craft. The origin of the most successful endeavor, William Adams & Company, is generally given as 1769. A series of mergers within the family dynasty eventually led to the business being incorporated in 1925 as William Adams and Sons (Potters) Ltd. In 1929 the Greengates factory was mostly rebuilt and enlarged and in 1956 the Greenfields factory was closed and production moved to the enlarged Greengates Works. William Adams remained open during the Second World War under the Wartime Concentration Scheme, as they were permitted to produce undecorated domestic ware along with canteen ware for the British armed forces. By the 1950s the company was facing dire times, and in 1966 they were acquired by the Wedgwood Group, who manufactured many pieces with the Adams name right up until the 1990s when the brand was entirely phased out. To this day, however, many of their older designs, such as the Palestine and Damascus patterns and the later European Imari style, are still in use by a variety of companies since the patents have lapsed.