Object Type
The stoneware bottles made by John Dwight at Fulham were copied initially from German prototypes. This example, apart from its superior potting, a more elegant handle and the absence of a face-mask, is essentially a substitute for the so-called 'bellarmine', a general-purpose stoneware bottle which was supplied by the million from the potteries of Frechen in the Rhineland. Such bottles were used for serving drink, but more importantly for storing strong beers which continued to ferment and to generate pressure in the bottle.

Ownership & Use
Many of Dwight's stoneware bottles were personalised with applied medallions containing initials, names, dates or inn signs, in the same way as contemporary sealed wine bottles. The beer bottles supplied for use at the famous Cock Alehouse at Temple Bar (on the south side of the Strand in London and much frequented by the diarist Samuel Pepys) are the most numerous to survive, while fragmentary 'Cock' medallions from many slightly-differing moulds were excavated at the Fulham Pottery in 1971-9. Almost all these are inscribed 'HC' for Henry Crosse, owner of the tavern and an important local brewer. But although the 'W. Morris' on the medallion of this bottle was never listed as owner, he is recorded as living nearby and is presumed to have acted as manager of the inn sometime in the 1670s.