Abstract

The Rockingham Inn, ten kilometres north of Halifax, was initially built as part of a barracks complex erected in 1796, but was later converted to an inn that was home to the Rockingham Club, an elite men's club whose members included many of Halifax's most prominent citizens. After the demise of the Club in 1814, the inn continued to serve the local community until its destruction by fire in 1833. A fragment from a chocolate mug recovered from the Rockingham Inn site has the composition of true (hard-paste) porcelain. Compositionally, the body of this object most closely resembles the true porcelain manufactured at the Caughley (c.l795- 1799)/Coalport (c.1799-1837) and Plymouth (c.l768-1770)/Bristol (c.1770-1781) works, but it has an alkali-lime (rather than lead-rich) glaze similar to Bristol's. This artifact is therefore tentatively attributed to Bristol, but additional analytical data for these and other early British true porcelains are required to confirm this attribution.