American Toby Jug Museum 

Tony Weller lamp base with stand designed by Mr. Watkins and produced by Beswick of Longton, England, circa 1940. Tony Weller, the coach driver and repository of Cockney wisdom, is a popular character from Charles Dickens' "Pickwick Papers", first published in 1836. He is the father of Sam Weller, Mr. Pickwick's manservant. Experience of life has turned him into something of a philosopher, mistrustful of "vidder" and a staunch believer in the virtue of a "haliby." His wife, Susan, is the proprietor of the Marquis and Granby Inn in Dorking. Susan falls in with the hypocritical Reverend Stiggins, of the Brick Lane Temperance Association, who the frequently imbibing Tony later exposes. Weller's whip forms the handle of the lamp base.