Plate, Chelsea shape, 8.25 inches diameter. Black transfer with polychrome clobbering. Impressed maker's mark for W. T. Copeland & Sons. Painted pattern number "2/2372" belonging to the year 1884. Impressed "L84" indicates a manufacture date of July 1884. Printed retailer mark for F. & C. Osler of 100 Oxford St., London. This simple but striking pattern features a bunch of vertically-placed barberry branches, complete with thorns and colorful leaves. The border consists of a simple gilded line. Barberry Branches is a TCC assigned name.

W. T. Copeland was the only son of William Copeland, partner of Josiah Spode in the Stoke Potteries, of Staffordshire and of Portugal Street, London. He succeeded his father as head of the porcelain firm in Portugal Street, London and eventually bought out the interests of the Spode family in the business in the Potteries and London. He ran the business in partnership with Thomas Garrett between 1833 and 1847. After the dissolution of the Copeland and Garrett partnership, it traded as W. T. Copeland and Sons. (1847-1976). In 1866 Copeland was appointed china and glass manufacturer to the Prince of Wales.

F. & C. Osler: Nos 100-102 were Oslers and Century House. F & C Osler were the leading makers of ornamental glass and lighting during the nineteenth century. The glassworks were founded by Thomas Osler in 1807 in Birmingham and specialized in glass furniture and chandeliers for the overseas market. Outstanding among the Midlands glass-makers of the Industrial Revolution, the firm owed its early success to an improved method for making glass drops for chandeliers and other ornaments. Oslers opened its London shop in 1845, but maintained links with the Midlands, designing a candelabrum that was exhibited at the Exhibition of Industrial Arts in Birmingham. When the Great Exhibition was organized in London in 1851, Oslers was commissioned to create the monumental ‘crystal fountain’ at the center of the event. The exhibition catalogue singles out the fountain as “perhaps the most striking object in the Exhibition; the lightness and beauty, as well as the perfect novelty of its design, have rendered it the theme of admiration with all visitors.”