A creamware butter tub and cover from the Reverend William Nelson service, circa 1806-08
Of plain circular shape with a button finial and on a fixed stand, decorated with a neat keyfret border in red enamel and gold, the cover painted with two crests of Nelson's chelengk and the stern of the San Josef, surmounted by an earl's coronet, 15.8cm diam (2)
Footnotes:
The Reverend William Nelson appears to have commissioned an extensive service to celebrate his inherited title of 1st Earl Nelson. In contrast to the bright Japan pattern chosen by his late brother and Emma, William elected for a set with a simple classical keyfret border in red and gold. Two principal sets of this pattern were made for William Nelson. One was a tea set using Coalport porcelain, the other a breakfast and supper service in creamware, some pieces bearing the impressed mark of Wilson. Both sets will have been decorated outside of the manufactories.

The creamware breakfast service passed to Earl Nelson's daughter, Charlotte, and part of this was included as lot 41 in Viscount Bridport's sale at Christie's in 1895. No butter tubs were mentioned, but the set in the auction did include a large jug and a basin and the catalogue noted that the jug was signed Absolon, Yarm'th'. William Absolon was a retailer and china-decorator based in Yarmouth. An unsigned dish in the Nelson-Ward Collection in the National Maritime Museum combines the same keyfret border with a painting of a church that is certainly in the manner of Absolon. Perhaps William Nelson asked his local china shop in Yarmouth to match the border design of a Coalport service made for him in London.

An annotated catalogue records that lot 41 in Lord Bridport's sale was bought, for £28.7s, by a customer named 'Ward'. It thus entered the Nelson-Ward collection, perhaps joining other pieces already there. An oval butter tub from the creamware service, although with a different shape of finial, is now in Greenwich and came from the Nelson-Ward Collection, no.AAA4657.