Whieldonware Plate Whieldonware Plate Front

This dinner plate was recovered from the 'English China Wreck' in Biscayne National Park. Whieldonware, an early type of creamware, was pioneered by Thomas Astbury and Thomas Whieldon in Staffordshire, England in 1750. Finished in shades of brown, yellow, and green, it was also called clouded ware. Initially popular because the vibrant colors offered an alternative to plain white stonewares, it declined in popularity in England after an uncolored creamware pattern was produced for the Queen's table in 1762. Production ended in 1775.

The English China Wreck is one of the park's most important submerged cultural resources. The ship, which sank between 1762 and 1770, was a merchant vessel of colonial English manufacture, about 70 feet long with a cargo capacity of 100 to 150 tons. At the time it sank, the ship was carrying primarily English export ceramics and the wreck contains one of the largest collections of colonial salt-glazed stoneware, creamware, and whieldonware in the world.

Whieldonware is the most common type of ceramic found on the English China site. Its presence in high numbers, together with even older white salt-glazed stoneware, suggests that the ship's cargo may represent the dumping of outdated, unfashionable patterns on the "less cultured" American colonial market.

The identity of the ship is unknown but archeologists studying the wreck have learned new information about the trade relationships between English merchants and American colonists, as well as the realities of trade in the American colonies during the 1700s. At the time, each crown dictated that its colonies only trade with the mother country. The presence of what appears to be Spanish bricks and figurines on the English China Wreck hints at illicit trade networks on the edges of empires, where laws were difficult to enforce from across the sea.