AN EXCITING DISCOVERY On a hot afternoon in October 1995. whilst visiting Norwich , I discovered that Sampson Hancock of the Old Crown DerbyChina Works was my great great great grandfather. My husband and I had entered a bookshop in Tombland in search of a novel he had wanted to obtain. Whilst waiting for him I came across the book Royal Crown Derby by John Twitchett and Betty Bailey which to my astonishment showed a “family tree” of the Hancocks and a photograph of Sampson and his workforce assembled before the gates of the King Street Manufactory. It was obvious to see he was a member of our family because of the striking resemblance between him and my grandfather James Cyril Hancock. I had known that my great grandfather’s older brother Harry (HSH) had been a painter at the Derby Factory, and that he had been named Sampson in honour of his grandfather but I had no idea that there had ever been more than one china factory. 
Fig. 1 Sampson and his workforce assembled before the gates of the King street Manufactory. From left to right: John Marshall, Harry Sampson Hancock, Sampson Hancock, John James Robinson, Edward Swainson, (3 persons unknown), and possibly Elizebeth Jefford, Sampson's wife. (photograph courtesy of John Twitchett F.R.S.A.
A very treasured family heirloom is a porcelain plaque, painted in enamels, and inscribed by HSH for his father John’s 48th birthday in 1887. It was this plaque which had originally determined me to find out more | about my elusive great uncle Harry, but once I made the discovery of my relationship to Sampson, together with the fact that he and I were both born on the 7th of April, my priorities changed and Sampson became the primary subject of my research and the topic of this article which seems most appropriate since 1998 marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the King Street manufactory.
Plate 1 Porcelain plaque painted in enamels by H. S. Hancock for his father's birthday. |