Etiquette of Georgian Era Place Settings

Late Georgian table-setting, c.1790 — Photograph: Jeremy Phillips for Fairfax House, York.

By the end of the eighteenth century the English ceramic factories were producing a high standard of porcelain for the dining room table, competing at all levels on quality and price with foreign imports. This superb gilded plate by Chamberlains Worcester, c. 1805, has the coat of arms for Thompson of York. Bill Brown's attendant knife and fork (B253) is remarkably up to date in style and shape, although it was made in Sheffield in the 1760s.

Notice also the marvelous ‘Beilby’ wine glass made for John Thomas, Bishop of Rochester, and the neoclassical silver-gilt candlesticks by John Scofield, 1780.

Manuals of instruction at this time indicate that it was acceptable for a bottle or decanter to be placed on the dining-room table and this example, of mullet shape, is engraved on the body with an uplifting motto: ‘Old Brown and Good Company’. — From “British Cutlery, An Illustrated History of Design, Evolution and Use”, York Civic Trust, 2001

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