Rare & Unusual Staffordshire Shakespeare Saving Bank

Stock No: 000985

Height: 4.75  Inches / 12 cm

Reference: Possibly Unrecorded

A very unusual late Victorian Staffordshire moneybox titled ‘Shakespeare Saving Bank’. I have researched this rare Staffordshire money box and discovered a similar example c1862 located in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Museum  Stratford-Upon-Avon. The museum has the worlds largest collection of Shakespeare related artefacts. I have read that the house William Shakespeare is alleged to have been born in was fully restored by the Trust (shortly after it was formed) to its present state between 1857 and 1864. I would imagine that the little banks could have been saving vessels at the time to help with donations toward the restoration fund. The pottery money bank has no stopper so one would have to smash the house to retrieve the content, little wonder so few period examples have survived. I believe this to be a later Victorian example of an earlier contemporary bank, probably manufactured from the old moulds passed down at the William Kent factory from c1890 -1900. This example has a hand-painted number 96 on the underside and could possibly point to the year it was produced. It is in excellent condition with no repairs or restoration, it has minor overglaze enamel flaking to the money slot area and base corners, also light crazing to the glaze throughout.