Edward and William Bennett, brothers who emigrated from England in 1841, were part of a large family of potters who worked together in New Jersey and Ohio before they opened their own Baltimore factory in 1848. They retained Charles Coxon, an Englishman from Staffordshire, who worked as the firm’s principal modeler from 1850 until 1858.  Prior to William's departure in 1856, the firm used this mark (see Marks) and produced a variety of pottery, including earthenware and stoneware. While it has been suggested that this pattern is properly called “The Good Samaritan,” the design was described as “Gipsey” when it was first published by Staffordshire potters Jones and Walley in 1841, no doubt because of the figures in front of a tent and around a fire.  It is likely that Coxon is responsible for introducing this relatively new English design to the Bennett pottery.

Related examples: For Parian examples of the pattern from Bennington and the English factory of Jones and Walley, see Barret 1958, p. 47, pls. 60, 61; for a stoneware example made by Edward Walley’s Villa Pottery after 1845, see Mudge et al. 1985, p. 45.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.