Rogers and Co

This water jug was made at Roger's and Co. pottery in Ipswich during the late nineteenth century. In Ipswich this item is called a 'foreigner' - a colloquial term used to describe objects made for personal use by workers, often illegitimately on company time, at the city's various industrial sites.

More broadly known as 'workman's pieces', such items reflect the creativity and ingenuity of everyday people. Numerous foreigners are known to have been produced at Ipswich potteries and brickyards. Naive in style and often quite opportunistic in construction, they were made from surplus clay and slipped into the kilns alongside the commercially produced items. This water jug was made by pressing clay into a mould taken of an English-made jug. The maker has then added his own patriotic decorations by hand, including an unofficial Coat of Arms and the words 'Advance Australia'.

The jug is reputed to have been found precariously perched on the windowsill of an old timber house in Ipswich by a private collector. Still in use, the jug had remained in the one household since it was brought home from the pottery in the 1890s.