Page 38 - Alan Blakeman Collection catalogue

WHISKY GALORE
Not long after the Pub Jug book was produced by BBR my personal interest in anything whisky began to take hold - anything from whisky jugs (called flagons down under) to giant Doulton back bar dispensers, with an especial penchant for Doulton stoneware, culminating in 2010 with the publication of the coffee table hard back Whisky Galore hard back
covering the subject, ably assisted by Paul Bloomfield.
Over the past few years I’ve dispersed most of my whisky jugs across various BBR Auctions, primarily to provide the
ongoing fine spread we have become accustomed to at our Elsecar w/e events, combining both important specialist auctions as well as the UK’s largest bottle Shows here at Elsecar Heritage Centre.
This catalogue sees my final grouping offered, one offs to highly cherished items. The Dirty Dicks very much a special part of my overall intended concept for Elsecar. Sadly the Bottle Museum folded
79. DIRTY
DICKS WHISKY
JUG. 9.5ins
tall. Cut off pear
shape body, side
handle, blob lip
with pouring
lip. Double
line encircled
transfer
one side,
ESTABLISHED
1745/ DIRTY
DICKS/
FAMOUS
WINES, with
large centre
figure. Impressed Doulton base
mark and a
number. Minute
pin head thin glaze
flake to lip otherwise excellent. A very rare offering indeed - this example on p60 of Whisky Galore.. 9/10. NR. £500-600+
BBR 153 featured a two page article in BBR magazine 153 about the Dirty Dicks pub.
80. LOCH KATRINE WHISKY WATER JUG. 7.4ins tall. A Doulton classic early salt glaze water jug emblazoned with various white sprigs, raised letters, two transfers depicting the idyllic Silver Strand at Loch Katrine, and a cut out sprig trade mark below the pouring lip - crown and four city names. Various base marks. A really miniscule inner lip glaze flaw doesn’t really detract - absolutely superb! Actual one
(not quite making 20 yrs) and the hoped for pop factory, brewery and Elsecar whisky company never materialised, nor did my beloved dream to host my own pub which just had to carry the Dirty Dicks name, lol.
shown on p264 of Doulton Lambeth
Wares.9/10. NR. £400-500+
Dirty Dick’s
Nick Chipchase, The Old Ruminator, posted on www. britishbottleforum. co.uk about a
Above: Portrait of Nathaniel Richard Bentley - the original ‘Dirty Dick.’
piece of stoneware with a dirty but romantic past. Intrigued, BBR did a bit of dusting to put some images with the jug.
‘DIRTYLeDfItC:KT’hwehraisrkeylyjusgee-nwDitohualtodnirtmy,abduet romantic, past.
The original Dirty Dick was
Nathanial (Richard) Bentley, a
prosperous London city merchant
with a hardware shop and
warehouse in Leadenhall St. In his
youth he was a ‘dandy’ in Paris and
was presented at the court of Louis XVI.
Back in London he kept a carriage, living
in great style, but in the mid eighteenth century, after his bride-to-be died on their wedding day, the once fastidious man was
so distraught and pessimistic of life he is said to have declared “It’s of no use, if I wash my hands today, they will be dirty again tomorrow” and thereafter never washed or changed his clothes.
Not only that but Bentley’s house, shop, and warehouse also became a filthy jumble of produce and dirt, ‘all order was abolished, jewellery and hardware were carelessly thrown together, covered by the same shroud of undisturbed dust’. His neighbours were ucpotnhsetafanctlyadceombuptlaitinwinags annodwosffoerfianmg otouscleattners
Above: Shop front on an early photograph. Right: Coloured Dirty Dicks advertisement promoting the establishment Above: Dickens era pamphlet. as an ‘Old Port Wine/ & Spirit House’.
intended for him would be addressed to ‘The Dirty Warehouse, London’. If the ‘shroud of dust’ brings to mind a Dickensian world then you will not be surprised to hear Bentley is thought to have
inspired the character of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations!
Bentley eventually stopped trading in 1804 and died in 1809. Bentleys warehouse was demolished but William Barker, who owned the Old Port Wine House, The Gates of Jerusalem in Bishopsgate Street, decided to cash in on Bentleys fame and renamed it ‘Dirty Dick’s’. It was described
in The History of Signboards (1866) as a small tap off a wholesale wine and spirit business, a “warehouse or barn without
floorboards; a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from black rafters; a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer, numberless gas pipes tied anyhow along the struts and posts to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps; sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves, everything covered with virgin dust and cobwebs.”
It was rebuilt in the 1870’s and Bentley’s sign board was in the window. Some of the contents apparently bought from the Dirty Warehouse but much added to use in an early example of theming a pub (Gordon Litherland knows about such if you need one done!). The Bishopsgate
Soap, towels or brushes were not in his plan;
Distillers (William Barker’s D.D
Ltd) appropriated the story of
the notoriously dirty hardware
merchant, décor of the ‘D.D.
Cellers’, which were hung an
extraordinary array of dead cats,
junk, rubbish and cobwebs to perpetuate the legend. The cellar bar has been cleaned up (Health & Safety no doubt) but a display remains - see www.dirtydicks.co.uk. The transfer
For forty long years as the neighbours declared,
His house never once had been cleaned or repaired. ‘Twas a scandal and a shame to the business-like street, One terrible blot in a ledger so neat;
The old shop with its glasses, black bottles and vats, And the rest of the mansion a run for the rats. Outside, the old plaster, all splatter and stain, Looked spotty in sunshine, and streaky in rain;
The window-sills sprouted with mildewy grass,
And the panes being broken, were known to be glass. ... There, king of the spiders, the Dirty Old man, Lives busy, and dirty, as ever he can;
With dirt on his fingers and dirt on his face,
The dirty old man thinks the dirt no disgrace. ...The old man has played out his part in the scene Wherever he now is let’s hope he’s more clean;
Yet give we a thought, free of scoffing or ban,
To that Dirty Old House and that Dirty Old Man.
print on the jug, and other promotional items, include a booklet using text by Dickens from a Household Words article of 1853 and reprinting a poem ‘A Lay of Leadenhall’ used in it by WwoilrlidasminAtllhinegphaomem. W- es’ellelelet fht.im have the last
Bottles & Pots in Disguise
diamond registration mark for May 23rd 1842 (shown centre
This little item might be mistaken for a vase with its Willow pattern-like Chinese blue and white decoration picked out with deep red overglaze enamel and dashes of gilding. A clue that it isn’t is found on the base transferred ‘CHAs. HEATON. & Co / LONDON’ in black. Mr Heaton was
in partnership with Henry Kennet in Lime Street until 1842, then continued under his own name as a wholesale and shipping oilman. In 1855, Charles
bpeicloklwe, -inw1it8h6b0a. sTeh&is dbeluseigbnodttrlaewpirnogb),aabnlydhaenldotshoemr, eathbinluge like Soy sauce or alternatively oriental essence appropriate to the design. Another item probably masquerading as something else is the goblet (shown below R) transfer printed with a scene of shoppers promenading on the ‘Parade Tonbridge Wells’. Again, turn over and the base has ‘BAKER
/ TUNBRIDGE WELLS’. A tricky one to research online (a lot of Bakers
and bread shops) but William Baker was a grocer on the High Street and
and James (presumably his son?) were at 23 and 25 Lime Street, in the city of London, and 15 White Lion Street, Spitalfields, but were fighting bankruptcy in the courts. In 1859 the export oilmen had moved to 116 Minories from where he was advertising as far away as in Australian newspapers.
Samuel on Camden Road. Then again perhaps they were related to Sarah Baker instigator of the Tunbridge Wells Theatre (now the Corn Exchange) built in 1802. Many actors, later famous, played here, including Edmund Kean and Charles Kemble. Before the alteration of the County Boundary, the Theatre had the stage in
He registered two bottles: one, the first glass bottle with
Sussex
and the Auditorium in Kent (that would make it tricky for John Ault!). Perhaps a local can tell BBR more?
L & above: Blue & white Chas. Heaton & Co, London sauce bottle.
Above: Diamond registered mark bottle bplauseo&riginal design drawing.
Above & above R: Various shots of the interior of Dirty Dicks - dead cats and all.
Right: Dirty Dicks as it stands today - any BBR readers been there/ frequented this establishment?