6 cup Britanniaware  teapot

marked: "2700 Leonard, Reed & Barton 6"

This teapot is a classic example of the earliest Reed & Barton products. It helped establish the company’s reputation for elegant, attractive, and affordable luxury goods, and versions of this design stayed in production for decades, even as other styles came and went. But the success Reed & Barton found through making and selling teapots like this was no accident; everything about it was engineered to succeed. 

It Isn’t Really Silver

When it was new, this teapot gleamed like silver; it has become dull over the almost 200 years since it was made. Britannia metal was harder than traditional pewter, and that harder surface could be polished to look like real silver. 

This was the appeal of Britannia metal, its ability to look like expensive silver but cost much less, delivering the high status of a silver tea service at the low price of pewter. A silver teapot cost $20 to $100 in 1840 (which is $640 to $3000 today), while this Britannia teapot sold for $1.78 and the coffee pot for $2.65  ($57 and $85 today). 

Leonard, Reed & Barton, Britannia teapot, c.1837

Old Colony History Museum

By displaying a tea set on a table or sideboard, an owner signaled to visitors that they were discerning and refined. It is possible that many of the early Reed and Barton Britania teapots were never even used for actual tea making, as their main function was communicating status. Many of the earliest styles are so large it is easy to imagine them attracting attention, but harder to imagine lifting them to pour. 

Stevens & Lakeman teapot, c.1830

Yale Art Gallery

So Many Pieces!

The shapes of the earliest Reed and Barton teapots look like they are made up of many small, separate parts. And they were. Faceted forms were built up out of sections of shaped and curved flat sheet. One panel of a teapot might be assembled from 3 separate parts, with eight of those panels attached together, with added base (made up of as many as 10 parts) and lid (16 more parts). The spout and handle mounts were each cast in two halves and then attached. One teapot could be made up of more than fifty separate pieces of metal! 

Rounded shapes were formed by spinning, which uses a lathe to press a rotating metal disc over a wooden form. Reed & Barton claimed to have invented the “sectional chuck,” a shape built up of interlocking pieces, over which an enclosed form could be spun. The pieces were then removed one at a time.

Appleton's Journal., December, 1878

When steel tooling for stamping forms became more widespread, designs could be made of fewer pieces, with the body of an entire teapot made from just 2 parts. This simplified manufacturing, and also allowed designs to feature more rounded shapes.

c. 1947, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

At Reed & Barton, pieces were joined together using blow pipes burning whale oil, a form of soldering used from 1830 to 1854, before the factory converted to gas. Charles Barton began his career in the soldering department in 1827 and, even after he became co-owner of the company, could usually be found at the bench assembling pieces.

The Practical Magazine, 1873

Old Colony History Museum

Appleton's Journal., December, 1878

It’s a Fake!

Although this teapot was made in Taunton, MA, it was not really designed there. It is a near-exact copy of a teapot imported form Sheffield, England, made by James Dixon almost ten years earlier, in 1829. 

Leonard, Reed & Barton, Britannia teapot, c.1837

Old Colony History Museum

There was no reason to make new designs when customers in the still-young United States wanted to show off their status with fancy goods from England. Creating new American designs would have left Reed & Barton with few customers, but producing a British-looking teapot that could sell for half the price of the imported original guaranteed their success. A Reed & Barton teapot cost $1.78, while the imported Dixon teapot cost $2.53 ($57 vs. $81 today).

James Dixon & Son, England, 1829

Yale Art Gallery

Getting it There

Taunton River weir, Taunton, c.1900

Old Colony History Museum

Before train lines were established, port cities remained the major distribution hubs. Between March and December, 1829, $5,360 of goods was sent to New York and Philadelphia, but only $1,590 to the closer areas of Providence, Boston, and New Bedford.

Once railroad lines between Providence and Boston were expanded to reach Taunton, and then eventually New Bedford, goods could be sent more easily to inland locations, revolutionizing the way goods got to customers. Reed & Barton made good use of the ever-expanding network of railroads to sell their good across the country.

Getting Paid

Bristol County National Bank of Taunton, 1865

Falmouth Stamp & Coin

There was not enough cash in circulation to pay for all of the transactions required by daily life and business. Instead, all company purchasing was done on credit. Workers were also paid with credit, which was then traded at local merchants having relationships with the Reed & Barton accounting office. This created a complex network of bills, draft notes, promissory notes, transfers, and credit slips. 

Because raw materials were purchased far away from Taunton, this network of credit and trading was extensive. It was not uncommon for transactions to take a full year or more to fully resolve.

Company finances were astoundingly complicated when considered from today, when we have so many easy options to pay for goods and services. In the 1830s, Federal money was gold and silver coin. Any paper money was printed by local banks, and not accepted beyond the reputation of that bank.