The term ‘pew group’ is a misnomer so entrenched in ceramic literature that it is unlikely to be changed. In fact the figures do not sit on church pews, but on high-backed settles which were common in inns and rural houses during late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A few of the groups have three figures, the rest two men or a couple, seated side by side in a decorous manner, suggesting shy courtship or the complacency of long years of marriage. Some of the men play bagpipes or a fiddle and lapdogs accompany several of the ladies. An exceptional group, also in the Fitzwilliam Museum, shows Adam and Eve standing beside the Tree of Knowledge (c.777–1928).

Unlike later eighteenth-century figures which were press moulded or slipcast, pew group figures were mainly hand-modelled from strips and rolls of clay, with some press-moulded parts. Wigs, costume, musical instruments and pets are shown in a highly realistic way, and the figures’ facial expressions and the slight inclination of their bodies give each an individual and sometimes humorous character. Their modellers have not been identified, but on the basis of the costume worn, the groups could have been made during the 1740s. They are so rare that it seems probable that they were made to order, or as gifts, rather than as part of the normal output of a pottery.