A rare set of six George III silver 'Teapot' picture-back teaspoons. 
Charles Hougham, 
London,...

The teapot back is one of the rarest backs to be found. It could relate to something as mundane as the fact that teaspoons were associated with tea (another known back being the tea plant).  However there is another intriguing possibility as the teapot back spoons are normally believed to have been made  in the 1770s and, being teaspoons,  very few (if any) have a date letter.  In 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act  which allowed tea from China to be sold in Britain's American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the acts passed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, to help fund the London based administration of the Colonies. The Sons of Liberty, an underground organisation in America championing the rights of the colonies, strongly opposed these acts as a violation of their rights. On December 17th 1773, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea (around 42kg then valued at  £9,659 [equivalent to £1,550,322 in 2023] in Boston by throwing it into the Harbour.  This extreme action was seen as treason by the British Government but in the lead up to it between five and seven thousand inhabitants of Boston (then a city of about 16,000) had expressed their ill feeling toward the legislation. Following this polarisation the drinking of tea declined in America and so the teapot back could be seen as suggesting support for the British Government's position and the nascent War of Independence (1775-1783). (With thanks to Pursuivant Research)