Royal Doulton Marks: How to Identify and Date Them

• Founded in 1815: John Doulton invested his entire life savings of £100 into a small pottery works in Lambeth, London, initially making drain pipes, pottery and storage jars -- it was not yet called 'Royal Doulton' at this time.
• 1901: The company received a Royal Warrant and permission to use the word 'Royal' in its name, becoming 'Royal Doulton' from this point; pieces made before this year do not carry the word 'Royal'.

Information comes from the current official Royal Doulton website's history page. A V&A article lists the company alongside Minton as one of the 'giants of the ceramics industry' and mentions that Doulton & Co. employed decorator Harry Barnard, but no V&A or other museum page could be found directly describing the backstamp's appearance (e.g. a lion-and-crown device) or its year-coding rules at a verbatim-quote standard -- repeated attempts to fetch V&A articles and object records tagged Doulton returned no usable descriptive text. So these fields were not filled in from specialist antique-mark-site claims.

Turn the piece over and light the mark from a low angle with a lamp or phone torch, which throws the impressed or engraved lines into relief; a printed or painted mark wants soft, even light instead. Fill the frame with the mark, then take a second shot of the whole piece. Do not clean tarnish off silver before photographing; the mark reads better dark. The app matches the mark and shape to the notes above.