Plate, 10.75 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed maker's mark for John Tams. The Rd. number dates the pattern registration to 1887. This typical Aesthetic pattern features three separate motifs consisting of cartouches and flowers. The largest motif consists of a flowering hawthorn branch with a fan-shaped cartouche filled with a bird perched in a patch of flowers with outspread wings. The second motif is a fantasy-inspired branch covered in a variety of disparate blooms. The third motif consists of a thin rectangular cartouche filled in with geometric shapes nestled amongst daisies. The border is a repeated chain of diamonds with a single stylized flower in the center.

John Tams was apprenticed to a working potter. About 1865 he entered into partnership with William Lowe, manufacturing in St. Gregory's Pottery, High Street, Longton. The partnership was dissolved about 1873 and in 1874 John Tams bought the Crown pottery, on the corner of Commerce Street and High Street. At first he specialized in the manufacture of imperial measured ware, mugs, jugs, etc., for hotels and public houses. The increasing use of glass and further government regulations forced him to develop new lines of production, including ornamental and general earthenware. In 1903 John Tams took his son Edmund into partnership and traded as John Tams & Son. The business was incorporated in 1912, trading as John Tams & Son Ltd. John Tams retired in 1917 and the business continued to be run by Edmund Tams and his two sons Philip & Peter.