Historical information

This bottle is part of the John Chance Collection of shipwreck artefacts.
The Dundas Pottery works were established in 1828 by William Johnstone in partnership with John Forsyth and John Mc Coll. Located where the Forth and Clyde Canal joined the Monkland Canal, North of Glasgow. Johnstone sold the pottery in 1835 to Robert Cochran and James Couper. Mc Coll was retained as manager until 1837when in 1839 Cochran & Couper sold the pottery and purchased the St Rollex Glass Works. George Duncan took over briefly but died in 1841, with the pottery possibly being run by his widow Helen and a potter named Alexander Paul. James Miller was the manager at the time and he bought the pottery in 1856, in partnership with John Moody. 
Miller's long and careful stewardship of the pottery saw success from the export market which allowed him to purchase the North British pottery in 1867 until 1874 when it was sold. In 1875, Miller, in partnership with John Young, leased part of Caledonian Pottery, naming it Crown Pottery, however, it burned down in 1879. In the early 1880s, Young extended the pottery and named it Milton Pottery.  Miller’s son, James W., became a partner in Milton pottery in 1905. 
James Miller Snr died in 1905 and the company continued as a limited liability company, being sold to the Borax Consolidation Ltd in 1929, but it was unsuccessful and Possil pottery purchased some of the company's equipment before it finally closed in 1932. From 1828 until the James Miller period of circa 1856, the pottery produced salt-glazed stoneware for the local industrial trade; mainly bottles and drain pipes.
James Miller produced various bottles, whisky and acid jars, casks, butter crocks, jam jars and domestic wares in Bristol glaze. He streamlined the water filter manufacturing, which had become a speciality of the pottery, and a dedicated section of the pottery was created solely for their production, which was exported worldwide.

Significance

A significant item of salt-glazed ceramic stoneware made by the Dundas potteries in Scotland who were renowned for making quality ironstone pottery. The bottle that was in common use throughout the British colonies and America for the containment of ale The bottle is also significant as it was recovered by John Chance, a diver, from a wreck on the coast of Victoria in the 1960s-70s. Items that come from several wrecks along Victoria's coast have since been donated to the Flagstaff Hill Maritime museum collection by his family Illustrating the level of historical value the subject item has.

Physical description

Beige salt glazed stoneware, bottle with discolorations above base. Manufacturer's oval Inscription lozenge stamped near base.

Inscriptions & markings

Stamp: [symbol of concentric ovals], text within the symbol "PORT DUNDAS POTTERY COY." and "GLASGOW".
Stamp:[Symbol - square with short vertical line in centre of base line]