Plate, 10.25 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed maker's mark for James Beech of the Swan Bank Works in Tunstall, Staffordshire, England. The pattern consists of four cartouches, each with a different scene fitting for a port city on the River Dart: small boats in the water with birds above, a bridge/water gate, some important trade buildings by the water (warehouses?), and a view labeled 'Salisbury cathedral" (second word not totally clear) depicting a view further inland. Flowering branches and butterflies gracefully fill the spaces between the cartouches. Bits and pieces of the pattern are draped casually over the rim here and there.

James Beech was born in 1822 in Tunstall, the son of Joseph Beech, a warehouseman, and Mary Cumberlidge. James Beech was a partner in Beech, Hancock & Co., which operated Swan Bank Pottery in Burslem from 1851 to 1855. The partnership, renamed Beech & Hancock, reopened in about 1857 in Tunstall and operated there until 1876, the last six years at another works named the Swan Bank Pottery. James Beech became the sole proprietor of the business in 1877 and operated the Swan Bank Works under his own name from 1877 until he died in early 1887. The business continued until 1889 when it was taken over by Boulton, Machin & Tennant.