Although Belfield's of Prestonpans enjoyed a reputation for their production of teapots and tablewares, the pottery also produced a wide range of functional domestic crockery, such as this piedish.

From the 1920s, the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes provided a forum for education and self-help for women isolated in communities distant from good transport links and urban centres.

Prestonpans was an early centre of industrial ceramics in Scotland.