One of my earliest memories is winning a goldfish at a fair, later christened, most imaginatively, ‘Goldie'. More recently, fairground prizes include teddy bears, balloons, cheap toys, magic tricks and candy floss. But, 150 years ago, ‘fairings' were the thing to win at the fair: cheap, naive porcelain ornaments of small size, manufactured in Germany to English designs, for the English market.
Around 1850, Conta &
