Long before 1907, when Beatrix Potter introduced the world to Mittens, Tom and Moppet, the three naughty kittens of her story, The Tale of Tom Kitten, the London working silversmiths, Robert Hennell & Sons produced a number of feline cruets. These novelties, the first of which date from the early 1860s, comprised a basket with three free-standing condiment pots in form very much like Miss Potter's Tom and his sisters. The pattern for Hennell's pussycat pots proved so popular that the firm made many more over the next 20 years, both as complete cruets and as individual salt and peppers. This present example is a revival of the Hennell original, made at Edward Barnard & Sons Ltd., the old-established manufacturing silversmiths. In 1962 Barnard's factory was overseen by George Joynes who worked there from 1927 until his retirement in 1983. Joynes, whose father and grandfather had also worked for the firm, was made a director of Barnard's in 1939.