![Sairey Gamp toby jug - Melrose Ware circa 1940](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a8b614_f80f6211d8c54ed9a708518a52f0c6fd~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_280,h_419,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Image-place-holder_edited_edited_edited_.jpg)
Sairey Gamp toby jug produced by Melrose Ware of Melbourne, Australia, circa 1940. Sairey Gamp, or Mrs. Gamp as she is more commonly known, is a nurse in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, first published as a serial in 1843-1844. Mrs. Gamp is dissolute, sloppy and generally drunk. She became a notorious stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era, before the reforms of campaigners like Florence Nightingale. The caricature was popular with the British public. A type of umbrella became known as a gamp because Mrs. Gamp always carries one, which she displays with "particular ostentation". The character was based upon a real nurse described to Dickens by his friend, Angela Burdett-Coutts.
Maker:
Melrose Ware
Australia
circa 1940
Model #:
toby jug
Size:
large
Height:
7"
![Sairey Gamp toby jug - Melrose Ware circa 1940](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a8b614_bd90b9f7429b450ea393b7650e6099c2~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_229,h_344,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Image-place-holder_edited.jpg)
![Sairey Gamp toby jug - Melrose Ware circa 1940](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a8b614_4da3bdfe5da74678b57a66fa802a4de2~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_229,h_344,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Image-place-holder_edited.jpg)
![Sairey Gamp toby jug - Melrose Ware circa 1940](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a8b614_eb95f224aae845fcb7ea9b5a469f0912~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_229,h_344,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Image-place-holder_edited.jpg)
![Sairey Gamp toby jug - Melrose Ware circa 1940](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a8b614_2c9358c3421f4290b7977944b6def2ae~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_229,h_344,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Image-place-holder_edited_edited_edited_.jpg)