Subject: Teapot query - orogin of the name 'betty'

From: [email-masked] (K.M. Jeary)
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 18:10:58 GMT

I am being driven mad by a question my mother asked me to research for her
- and I cannot find the answer - although I've discovered a lot of other
interesting information on route. It's apparently a question in a quiz.

In the later seventeenth century, Europeans started to make teapots in
imitiation of imported Chinese globular teapots ('Yi-hsing' ware or at
least three other spellings). These red stoneware teaports were pioneered
in England by the Elers brothers (Dutch-born silversmiths) and by John Dwight
in London. The Elers brothers later moved north, and were bankrupt by 1700.
They were normally unglazed, with wheel-tuned stamped decoration (leaves etc),
a technique later used by Josiah Wedgewood in the 1760s. These teapots are
nearly globular and are apparently known as 'betties'.

The question is this : after which Lady were they named?

I've used the full resources of the University Library and Cambridge reference
library tyring to find the answer in three areas: social history, reference (thefull 12-volume OED for exmaple) and the specialist antique books (catalogues,
volumes on stoneware, porcelain, British stoneware etc) and I can find *no*
reference to 'betty' as a teapot at all. A 'betty' in the eighteenth century
could be a jem (bet, betty, jem, jemmy), a man who carried out household
duties or the passive party in a homosexual relationship (cf molly)...
*No reference to teapots*! A 'Brown Betty' was apparently the same as a 'Brown
Bess' ie stnadard issue 18th century British Army musket. Yes, I do know it
is also an American desert...

Can anybody else enlighten me? The earliest reference to 'Betty' as a diminutiveof Elizabeth is according to the OED about 1702, so the nickname must be an
eighteenth century one... Tea was first drunk and sold in the London coffee-houses
(1657 is the first recorded sale), and it took some years to become established
in the upper-class home, so the woman after whom they were named was probably
prominent in Queen Anne's reign or later...

PS The first reference to tea in English is in a letter from a factor of the
East India Company to another factor in 1615... Our earliest supplies came from
China via Java, until the Dutch pushed us out in 1686...

-- 
The opinions contained herein are not the fault of Cambridge University 
Computing Service...............
Internet: [email-masked]       University Computing Service,
JANET:    [email-masked]       Computer Laboratory, Pembroke St,
                                        Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.

---

From: [email-masked] ("Mary Branscombe")
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:33:07 GMT

The earliest reference I know of to a Brown Betty is in the Professor 
Brawnestorm book the Dribblesome Teapot!

However, last week I some a globular teapot-like pot designed for 
keeping syrup of quinces in - looks very like a teapot and is 17thC 
English stoneware (white with a blue design). Probably irrelevant, but 
what came to mind. Anyone have a recipe for syrup of quinces?

Mary MerryTail
+-----------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Organisation: Me? You're joking, right? [email-masked] |
|             Officially "too bizarre" and proud of it               |
|  Evolution - bidding for the 1996 Eastercon | Ask me about it ;-)  | 
+-----------------------------------------+--------------------------+