A Garnish of Pewter

About

A list of pewter items and wares gleaned from the literature, or found listed for sale in antique catalogs - from spoons to stills and chamber pots to church cups. A synonym for the larger, heavier pewter items was sadware. British pewterers called themselves sadware-men.

“Pewter is a metal never seen for modern table furnishing, or domestic use in any form to-day; but in colonial times what was called a garnish of pewter, that is, a full set of pewter platters, plates, and dishes, was the pride of every good housekeeper, and also a favorite wedding gift.” --Home Life in Colonial Days

"At the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the colleges had their garnishes of pewter, but with few exceptions there is little now remaining. Queen's College, Oxford, has perhaps the best specimens." --H. J. L. J. Massé, The Pewter Collector - A Guide to English Pewter with some Reference to Foreign Work, 1921.

"di. dus. garnes de vessell de pewdre" (half of a garnish of pewter vessels) --from the will of John Ely, vicar in Ripon Minster, 1427.

"a hoole garnish of peautre vessel, two round basin of peautre" --from the will of Elizabeth, Lady Uvedale, 1487.

"xx pewder platters, xij pewder dishes, viii salters, ii payre of potclyppes, j garnishe of vessel, j shaving basyn." --from the inventory of the College of Auckland, 1498.

Pewter wares were sold by the pound, and the great houses possessed lots. Massé informs us that in 1575, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, had 370 lbs. of the stuff in the kitchen alone, with more in the wine-cellars and in his home in Addiscombe. Lord Northampton's kitchen pewter weighed in at about 300 lbs.

Some of the odder terms and spellings come from early wills, household lists, and catalogs such as these last cited.