Mauchline souvenirs now rediscovered as collectables

By Linda Rosenkrantz
Copley News Service

Mauchline Ware is not a subject found in any of the popular general guides to antiques and collectibles, but its one that’s definitely worthy of attention.

Pronounced MAW-klin, it consists of small, heavily varnished wooden souvenir objects made in Scotland in the 19th and early 20th century, and is now the subject of its own impressive, impeccably researched and copiously illustrated collectors guide — a book that should go a long way in rectifying this neglect.

“Mauchline Ware” by David Trachtenberg and Thomas Keith (Antique Collectors Club) opens the door to a vast array of finely crafted, decorative, sometimes sentimental, Victorian boxes and other such practical articles as sewing accessories, letter openers, banks, hairpin holders, photo albums and match holders.

Otherwise known by such prosaic terms as Scottish white wood products and Scottish fancy goods, this souvenir ware was made in Mauchline, the small southwestern Scottish town about 27 miles south of Glasgow from 1830 to the 1930s. It was a charming by-product of that period’s passion for travel, as well as for the propensity for sniffing snuff.

In the first half of the 19th century, in fact, there were about 50 firms in that area producing snuffboxes, but when that addictive habit fell out of favor, many of those companies were forced out of business, while others sought to diversify.

One of these, and the one that would become most associated with Mauchline Ware, was W & A Smith, which eventually comprised four generations, most of whom were named either William or Andrew. The first William, a stone mason, and his four sons began to produce razor hones and snuffboxes around 1810. Scottish themes dominated the decoration of the early hand-painted boxes, especially tartan patterns. One of the Smith’s innovations was mechanizing the process by having the often-complex designs painted onto paper, which they then glued onto the wood.

After they received a Royal Warrant from King William IV in 1832, they were flooded with orders from the nobility and wealthy class. By the mid-1850s, the Smith box business was at the pinnacle of its success, contributing substantially to the local economy. The firm flourished until 1933, when it was unable to recover from a disastrous fire.

Although there is a consistency to the look of this ware, there is also sufficient variety to entice the collector into specializing. There are, for example, five distinctive finishes, each with its own appeal: Transfer Ware, the above mentioned Tartan Ware, Fern Ware, Black Lacquer Ware and Photographic Ware. Most common is Transfer Ware, which began as an attempt to simulate the hand-drawn pen-and-ink decoration that had become prohibitively expensive, as increasing numbers of travelers looked for cheaper souvenirs.

Wood from the plane tree, or sycamore, provided the ideal cream-colored background to highlight the black-inked engravings. Also popular were the numerous objects decorated with a fern motif, and the more prosaic photographic pieces, which offered literal reminders of tourist destinations, some of them with a tartan background. Harder to find are complex geometric pieces, pattern ware displaying sometimes dazzling all-over repetitive patterns, and those with chintz, basket weave and map motifs.

Trachtenberg and Keith offer a number of interesting and visually appealing sub-categories within this field. They include Transfer scenes having to do with Robert Burns, and portraits of other writers and Royal figures, a group focused on Washington, Lincoln and other American presidents, as well as their homes, birthplaces and battle headquarters, and a distinctive category of items identified as having been made from the specific wood native to one of at least a hundred different locations.