Description:Pearlware dark blue printed plate with transfer printed design showing 'Gilpin's Mills at Brandywine Creek'. Diameter 235mm. In 1750 Thomas Gilpin erected extensive mills on the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware. Gilpin was a Quaker and he refused to take part in the Revolutionary war with Britain. In 1777 he was arrested for treason and, along with a number of other Quakers, was banished to Virginia, where he died nine months later. The plate was excavated at St. Paul's Church, Burslem in 1974.