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Armorial Porcelain , dish , plate

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A Wedgwood creamware plate with gilt feather and navy blue reeded border, and painted in the centre with a coat of arms, crests and motto: ESSE QUAM VIDERI

Diameter approx: 208mm / 8 inch

Hairline crack

From the display of the arms of Forster and their associated quarterings as depicted on this plate it is undoubtedly a remnant of a dinner or some such service of porcelain that was in the ownership of a Forster descendant of The Reverend
Thomas Forster, FRS (died 27th
March 1786), of Halesworth in Suffolk and his wife, Elizabeth Thompson.

Thomas and Elizabeth had four children
who survived infancy to adulthood one of whom was their only daughter, Elizabeth
who married Edward Berry, a merchant in the
City of London. Their son was Rear Admiral Sir Edward Berry, Baronet, the celebrated
Royal Naval officer during the French Revolutionary Wars at the height of Britain’s conflict at sea with Napoleon in the late 18th to early 19th Century.

He served with Nelson at the Battle of Cape St Vincent (14th February 1797) and as the admiral's flag captain at the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay (1st August 1798). Berry was next to Nelson when he was wounded catching hold of the admiral as he
fell.

Sir Edward also served with Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar (21st October
1805) as the Captain of HMS Agamemnon. He married his cousin, Louisa Henrietta
Suzenne Forster, daughter of Rev. Dr Forster, headmaster of Noriwch Grammer School, where Berry had been taught.

According to a label on the reverse, this plate was with Captain Berry in HMS Agamemnon at the Battle of Trafalgar. It came to him either from his grandmother or hiw wife.

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