Museum accessions.(June and Henry Weldon donate collection of English pottery to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)(Brief Article)

In 1972 June deH. ("Jimmy") Weldon came across a small earthenware cockerel covered in a multicolor glaze that struck her fancy. Not only did it resemble the logo of her husband's farm products business, but it was associated with an eighteenth-century English potter, Thomas Whieldon, whose surname sounded much like theirs. She placed it in her husband Henry's Christmas stocking, and thus was initiated one of the finest collections of English pottery in the world today.

The Weldons have recently donated this outstanding collection of some 725 pieces to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. In explaining their decision to give the collection to Williamsburg, Mr. Weldon commented, "Joined with the ceramics already in Williamsburg, these two collections will form the strongest assemblage of English pottery in America, indeed, in the world."

Dutch-born and educated in Europe, Mr. Weldon came to the United States during World War II, served as an intelligence officer with General George Patton, and then made his fortune here. "I think of Colonial Williamsburg as America's museum," he wrote, and "I wish to recognize the wonderful things America has done for me and repay my debt through this gift to the nation."

The objects illustrated here, including the seminal rooster and a matching hen (illustrated at right), provide the merest hint of the collection's riches. In date, it ranges from the midseventeenth to the midnineteenth century, with the lion's share being ...