Child's tea set saucer, 5 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed maker's mark for Whittaker & Co. The Rd. No. indicates a pattern registration date of 1889. The inclusion of "England" suggests a production date of c. 1891-1892. This saucer is part of a child's tea set and is part of a series by Whittaker & Co. featuring four different nursery rhymes. This nursery rhyme goes as follows:

There was a little man, and he had a little gun,
And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead;
He went to the brook, and saw a little duck,
And shot it right through the head, head, head.

He carried it home to his old wife Joan,
And bade her a fire to make, make, make.
To roast the little duck he had shot in the brook,
And he’d go and fetch the drake, drake, drake.

The drake was a-swimming with his curly tail;
The little man made it his mark, mark, mark.
He let off his gun, but he fired too soon,
And the drake flew away with a quack, quack, quack.

Whittaker & Co. was a brief series of partnerships of earthenware manufacturers, operating the Hallfield Pottery, (built in 1882) in Hanley, Staffordshire. The original partners were Lewis Whittaker, James Edge, Samuel Heath, John Henry Weatherby, and Robert Rowley. Whittaker, Edge & Co: 1882-1886. Whittaker & Co: 1886-1892. Whittaker, Heath & Co: 1892-1898.