Object Type
A stoneware jug is an extremely functional type. It is strong and non-porous and in its simplest form, made in at least three sizes, it would be in use daily for beer or cider. However, this example, which is elaborately and crisply modelled, would have been comparatively expensive and was probably intended largely for show. Given its moralising subject matter, it may have been used occasionally on Sundays.

Design & Designing
The design of this jug was registered by Charles Meigh in 1846. The jug itself was displayed on Meigh's stand at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Most usually known as the York Minster Jug and marked as such on the base, there are copies of the same design which are backstamped 'Minster Jug' and 'York Minster'. No reason for this variation has been identified, nor is there any known association with York Minster. The design does not bear any apparent relation to decoration at York Minster and its source has not been discovered. Although the names of some of Meigh's designers are known, none has been linked to the design of this jug.

Religious subjects were popular from the 1840s, and an architectural setting in relief was often thought appropriate. But Meigh's acknowledged superior quality in the crispness of the modelling and casting meant that three-dimensional Gothic tracery, especially in the form of the handle, and an architectural shape - as opposed to the more usual round or oval cross-section - was a challenge the factory was well able to meet. Indeed, few other factories could have attempted so ambitious a design.