Jug or vase - probably Powell, Bishop and Stonier

Firstly the bad news I'm a bit of an idiot and joined a 20c forum to ask about a 19c pot. But the good news is my lovely moderator said, to show you were not victorianaphobes I could stay... hoorah !  Now call me Mr Stupid ... most people do incidentally ... but being a simple man a vase has no handle, a jug has a pouring lip, an urn has two handles ... so there, this thing beats me straight away. Also I have tried to decipher the lozenge and make it 1862 .... which seems crazy as this gold snakey design looks quite modern and not my idea of high victorian. Maybe i read the lozenge wrong and ended up in the right forum after all !    Anyway it is white and gold, 340mm high, 90mm top dia and 125mm base dia. I did my best  with the impressed mark picture but have no idea what ... or who .. it represents. So pretty much I decided I didn't know anything about it, or even what it was, and so my course of action was obvious ..... consult the legendary oracles of 20th C pot forum !

I think that last impresssed mark is the "Caduceus" used by Powell, Bishop and their successors (Powell, Bishop and Stonier, etc)
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/821a.htm

And indeed there's a similar jug in less spectacular colours here:
http://porcelainporn.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/bisto-barmey.html

I am replying to my own post ... how cool is that ! I have re read the lozenge and going for March 1878 ..... but still wrong forum I guess.

Thank you Hercules Terrific response that has taken me a long way ....... and I enjoyed reading the blog you mentioned ..... any idea why this jug had no spout ? I wondr if it was closed by a cork stopper and used as a container ?

Those 'snakey things' look like Chinese Dragons. A mass produced pastiche 'oriental' type decoration when there was a large market and interst in Chinese and Japanese decoration in high victorian Britain?