Pretty! they are bone dishes, went alongside the dinner plate on the left....for discarded things like fish bones and chicken bones.
Beautiful pattern! How many do you have?
Linda C

Thanks, Linda - I was hoping you would reply! We have 6 of these. Nothing else in this pattern, though - DH's mother was a collector of all manner of stuff. These we found in the 1641 Bible Box, wrapped in newspaper from the early 50's.

Any clue where I could find out a bit about the value? Replacements Ltd has no bone plates listed, and have not responded to my email of a month ago (I did include photos).

I simply haven't been able to find any comparable plates around - maybe they were more popular in England than here?

There are some in the link below.....

Here is a link that might be useful: bone plates

Lots on ebay too....

Here is a link that might be useful: bone plates

Wow, thanks again Linda!

Yes, now with the proper nomenclature, I can hunt more efficiently.

DH doesn't love these, but I don't think he should just give them away. His mother collected some amazing stuff, and some absolute crap.

Thanks for the pointers.

I don't know if it's true but I've always heard that the smaller sized pieces in this shape are bone dishes & the larger ones like yours are side plates. Replacements calls them crescent plates. HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: Crescent Salad plates

From what I have read about Victorian manners and mores, they were originally bone dishes. Different patterns had different sized crescent dishes....but I never saw the same pattern in 2 sizes.
I am sure they were often used as a side dish, but you wouldn't put your chicken bones into the dish with your creamed peas.....so likely not both uses at the same time.
You know the Victorians....they has whole separate sets of silver for the fish course....you had a fish knife and fork and a fish slice and fish serving fork...why not a dish to put the bones in?

Here is a link that might be useful: Fish service

The larger dishes seem to be in patterns made from about the 1920's onward but I've never seen both sizes within one pattern either. Although I can't say that I've ever closely examined a large Victorian set, especially one that continued production into the early to mid-20th century.....

I think that pattern is just wonderful since I like anything picturing victorian children. I had a little time so I checked Ebay just for the pattern, not bone dishes. In a completed auction 17 pieces of dinnerware sold for $ 100.00 plus $ 12.00 postage.In the current for sale the plates did did not have any bids yet. One of the dealers described this pattern as polychrome transferware dating late 1800's and another listed date as 1902. As you will note when you look at the pictures of Chatham on Ebay each dinnerware piece has a someone different scene.