Early English Delftware from London and Virginia

Ivor Noël Hume

Jan 1977 · Colonial Williamsburg

About this ebook

The history of early English delftware is also the first chapter in the chronicle of Britain's modern ceramic industry. To collectors of English pottery, examples of seventeenth-century delftware provide uninhibited splashes of color unequaled among the wares of later years; to this historical archaeologist reaching into the shadows of the past, shattered delftware dishes, mugs, porringers, and even chamber pots provide lanterns to light his way. 

About the author

Ivor Noël Hume was born in London, England on November 4, 1927. He was evacuated from London during World War II. He studied at Framlingham and St. Lawrence Colleges and served briefly in the Army until he was injured in an accident. While working as a stage manager in London, he heard a radio report about a man who fished antiquities from the Thames and decided to give it a try. He delivered some of his finds to Adrian Oswald, the head of the Guildhall Museum. Hume began working with him doing postwar archaeology in the rubble of London and was given a job at the museum in 1949. A week later, he found himself in charge after his boss contracted pneumonia and never returned to work. He decided to specialize in 17th- and 18th-century wine bottles. He was the director of Colonial Williamsburg's archaeological mission from 1957 to 1988. In 1970, he and his colleagues discovered the remains of a once-fortified settlement called Wolstenholme Towne. He was able to verified the massacre the destroyed the settlement by exhuming the bones of its victims and found physical evidence of colonization. He wrote more than two dozen books during his lifetime including The Virginia Adventure, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America, All the Best Rubbish, and A Passion for the Past: The Odyssey of a Transatlantic Archaeologist. In 1993, he was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire for his service to British cultural interests in Virginia. He died on February 4, 2017 at the age of 89.