Sitting quietly in a display cabinet at the Dysons Perrins Museum in Worcester is a replica, made by Royal Worcester Porcelain, of an enigmatic item known as Shakespeare's Jug.

Produced in 1853 during the Kerr, Binns & Co period, the exhibit owes its existence to the company's then managing director Richard Binns and the original jug's owner, my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Fletcher, of Gloucester.

Although Shakespeare's direct descendants died out with his granddaughter in 1670, Elizabeth Fletcher could trace her family back to that of the Bard's sister Joan Hart. Seeing that the jug was to be sold at an auction near Tewkesbury in 1844, Elizabeth made sure that she bought it for the then not inconsiderable sum of 19 guineas. She already owned another relic reputed to have belonged to Shakespeare, and was so proud of her ancestry that the jug soon became nationally famous, being examined by among others, Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert.

In 1853, the jug came to the attention of Richard Binns, who negotiated with Elizabeth Fletcher for the rights to manufacture replicas of it. Later that year, one of these was displayed at the Dublin Industrial Exhibition, along with copies of a pamphlet containing reprints of articles that had been published about the original jug.

The jug remained in Elizabeth's possession until 1886, when it featured at an exhibition held at the Royal Albert Hall to raise money for the Chelsea Hospital For

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Women. A book was displayed, giving the jug's history along with signed testimonies from famous Victorians such as Charles Dickens and Jenny Lind, who had all examined the piece and were convinced of its authenticity.

After Elizabeth died in 1890, her relatives decided to sell her Shakespearian relics, but many years later the jug reappeared as part of the Rouse Lench collection, where in the early 1980s, it was examined by the Worcester ceramics expert Henry Sandon. Unfortunately, he didn't give the appraisal that its owners had been expecting, saying that in his opinion, it had been made in the mid-18th Century. Nevertheless, he also told an interesting story about Richard Binns, whom as he said, "had the wool pulled over his eyes more than once during his career".

Despite being a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, on one occasion Binns apparently wrote an authoritative paper about a tea cup and saucer that one of his employees had found lying on the Malvern Hills. In Binns' opinion, they had belonged to a Silurian chieftain and had probably formed part of his grave goods!

So where did the jug come from? Apart from hearsay, the first documented evidence of its existence appeared in 1787, when Sarah Hart, of Tewkesbury, who was herself descended from Shakespeare's sister Joan Hart, found herself in debt to her cousin Henry Richardson. Owing him 12 guineas for stockings and unable to pay the debt, she offered Richardson what she assured him was a jug once owned by her revered ancestor. Richardson accepted the offer and subsequently had a silver rim and lid with an image of the Bard on it added to the piece. Another 57 years then passed before my great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Fletcher, finally managed to re-acquire it.

The thought of Sarah Hart evidently inventing a fake pedigree for an ordinary domestic utensil in order to pay off her debts is almost as amusing as one of Shakespeare's comedies itself. And the jug in the Dyson Perrins Museum? Well, at least that's what it's claimed to be, a genuine replica!