The ceramic art of Great Britain from pre-historic times down to the present day, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt

The Don Pottery.

The Don Pottery, closely adjoining the canal at Swinton, on which it has a wharf, was established in a very small way about 1790, and considerably increased in 1800 by John Green, of Newhill. He was one of the Greens of Leeds, of the same family as the proprietors of the Leeds Pottery, and a proprietor in the Swinton Pottery. He is, in fact, stated to have been the manager of the Leeds and the Swinton potteries, and to have sustained considerable losses on the breaking out of the French war. About 1800, or a little later, he purchased a plot of almost waste and swampy land at Swinton, and, with the aid of partners, set about the erection of the present works. At this time a person named Newton, father to the more than octogenarian from whom, some years ago, I picked up many scraps of the information I record, had an enamel kiln at the back of his house at Swinton, where he used to burn such wares as he decorated. To this man, for the first twelve months, Green, of the Don Pottery, brought his pattern pieces to be fired, as he prepared them. In 1807, other members of the family united with John Green, who also had partners named Clarke; the firm trading as “Greens, Clarke, & Co.” In 1831, Mr. Green was proprietor of the Don Pottery.

In 1834 the Don Pottery passed by purchase to Mr. Samuel Barker, of the Mexborough Old Pottery; which latter works he closed in 1844, and confined his operations entirely to the Don manufactory. In 1851 the firm became “Samuel Barker and Son,” under which style it is still continued, the present proprietors being Mr. Henry Barker and Mr. Edward Barker.

From a list of goods prepared by the firm in 1808, it appears that a considerable variety was produced at that time. This list, which is in my own collection, is thus headed:—

“Greens, Clarke, & Co., Don Pottery, near Doncaster, Make, Sell, and Export Wholesale all the various kinds of Earthenware, viz., Cream-colour, Brown, Blue, and Green Shell, Nankin Blue, Printed, Painted, and Enamelled, Egyptian Black, Brown, China, &c., &c. Also Services executed in Borders, Landscapes, Coats of Arms, &c., and ornamented with Gold or Silver.”

Of the ordinary fine earthenware made soon after the opening of the works, some specimens, whose actual date can be satisfactorily ascertained, have come under my notice, and show to what perfection in body and glaze, in manipulation, and in decoration, the manufacture had already arrived. The most remarkable of these early specimens is a jug, commonly called the “Jumper Jug,” which is of great rarity. On either side of the larger jugs is the figure of a very uncouth, coarse, and slovenly-looking man, in red coat, pink waistcoat, striped green and white under-waistcoat, orange-neckerchief, orange breeches, above which his shirt is seen, top boots, and spurs. In his hand he holds his hat, orange, with red ribands, on which is a card bearing the words “Milton for ever.” Beneath the spout, on a scroll, is the following curious verse:—

“The Figure there is no mistaking,

It is the famous Man for—breaking.

Oh that instead of Horse and Mare

He had but broken Crockery-ware,

Each grateful Potter in a bumper

Might drink the health of

Orange Jumper.”

This man, who was known all the country round as “Orange Jumper,” was a very eccentric character, and a great mover in the political “stirs” of his county. He was a horse-breaker at Wentworth, and many extraordinary stories are remembered in connection with him. One of these, as connected with the story of this jug, is worth repeating. In the great Yorkshire election of 1807—the most costly and the most strongly contested election on record—when the candidates who were so mercilessly pitted against each other were Lord Milton, Wilberforce, and Lascelles, “Orange Jumper” was employed to carry dispatches regularly backwards and forwards from York to Wentworth House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, the father of Lord Milton, who eventually won the election, and was returned as the colleague of Wilberforce. Orange was the Fitzwilliam colour, and blue that of Lascelles (son of the Earl of Harewood), his opponent; and on one occasion “Jumper” was seen entering York decked out as usual in orange, but riding on an ass gaily decorated with bright blue ribands. On being jeered at for this apparent inconsistency in wearing both colours, he replied that he wore the right colour, orange, and that his ass was only like other asses, for they were all donkeys that wore blue! The election was gained by the party he espoused, and in commemoration these jugs,[125] with his portrait and verse, were made. They are marked

Don. Pottery.

pencilled in red on the bottom.

An engraved pattern-book was issued by the firm, in the same style, and of the same size, as that of Hartley, Greens, & Co., of the Leeds Pottery. A careful comparison of the two books reveals the fact, that whereas in the latest edition of that of Leeds 269 patterns are engraved, in that of the Don Pottery 292 are given. It also reveals the important fact that many of the Don patterns are identical with those of Leeds, the engraver of the former having evidently traced from those of the latter (Leeds) in preparing his plates. Many of the remaining patterns are slightly altered from Leeds, while others do not appear in the book of those works at all. In this pattern-book Figs. 1 to 8 are covered tureens; 10 to 12 are leaves; 13 to 18, covered vegetable dishes; 19 to 23, sauce tureens with covers, stands, and ladles; 24, a two-handled drinking cup; 26 to 30, butter-boats; 31 to 49, dishes and plates, &c.; 50 to 69, fruit bowls, side dishes, &c.; 70 to 76, perforated, open-work, and embossed baskets and stands, some of which have covers, and are precisely of the same kind as those of the Leeds works; 77, a perforated chestnut tureen, like that of the Leeds works; 78, also perforated and embossed; 79 to 83, perforated dishes and plates; 84 to 91, covered sugar bowls, &c.; 92 to 96, spoons and strainers; 97 to 110, bowls, &c.; 111 is a melon bowl of the same kind as those made at Leeds; 113 to 116 are egg cups and stands; 118 to 130, cruets, &c.; 131, an asparagus holder, like the Leeds; 139 to 145, mugs and jugs; 146, a toast rack; 147, an invalid’s feeding cup; 148 to 159, dishes, tureens, &c.; 160 and 161, vegetable trays in compartments; 163 to 176, ice pails and domestic vessels; 177 to 183, ink stands; 184, 185, flower-pots; 186 to 202, toilet services and shaving basins; 201 is a scaphium; 206 is a quintal flower horn; 207, a pastile-burner; and then come candlesticks, egg-cups, flower-vases, flower-stands, vases, crosses with cup for holy water, &c. Another series of plates, the figures numbered from 1 to 54 and from A to K, are devoted to tea equipages, consisting of a remarkable and very striking variety of teapots, coffee-pots, milk jugs, sugar bowls, cake trays, tea canisters, basins or bowls, tea, coffee, and chocolate cups and saucers, &c., &c. On each plate throughout the series the name “Don Pottery” is engraved in a scroll.

Figs. 881 to 883.

Open-work baskets, tureens, &c., twig baskets, in which the “withies” were of precisely the same form as those of Leeds and Wedgwood, &c., perforated plates, dishes, tureens, spoons, ladles, and other articles, ice-pails, salt-cellars, flower-vases, cruets and stands, inkstands, seals, bird fountains, smelling-bottles, and, indeed, every variety of articles, as well as services of all descriptions, and ornamental vases of several designs, were made in these wares, and such as were adapted for the colour were made in green glazed ware. Of teapots, many patterns, with raised groups, trophies, &c., and others for loose metal “kettle-handles” are also engraved.

In the cream-coloured ware, and also in the fine white earthenware, excellent dessert and other services were made, and were painted with flowers, &c., with a truth to nature which has seldom been equalled. In my own collection are also some remarkable plates of small size of fine earthenware. In these the underside of the plate is left white, while the whole of the rest is tinted of a deep buff. The edge, and a line on the inner side of the rim, is black, and in the centre of each plate is a landscape, which has all the beauty and effect of a well-executed Indian ink drawing.

About 1810–12, china of an excellent quality was, to a very small extent indeed, made at the Don Pottery, and examples of this are of extreme rarity. In Mr. Manning’s possession is a coffee mug of excellent body, and of remarkably good soft glaze, well painted with Chinese subjects, which is marked “Don Pottery” in very small letters, pencilled in red. This interesting specimen is the only marked one which has come under my notice. Two other specimens of this very rare china ware, which are equally curious and interesting with the one just spoken of, are here engraved. One is a jug which will hold rather more than a pint, and has a curious story attached to it. The china body of which it was made was mixed by Godfrey Speight and Ward Booth, both of whom were originally from Staffordshire; the latter, it is said, was brought from that county “with a whole regiment of hands” to work at the new Don Pottery, of which he became the manager. The jug was painted by his son, Taylor Booth, who was brought up with Enoch Wood, of Burslem, and afterwards was at the old Derby China Works, and given to Speight, from whose aged son’s hands it passed into my own. It is beautifully painted with groups of flowers on either side, and a sprig of jasmine beneath the spout, and has a broad gold line round the top. The curious part of the story connected with this jug is, that in the body of which it is composed, by one of those strange and unaccountable freaks to which potters as well as other people are liable, are two of the fingers of a noted malefactor, Spencer Broughton, who was gibbeted on Attercliffe Common at the close of the last century. It appears that a party of the Don and Swinton potters, who had been to Sheffield for a carousal, and had stayed there till the small hours of the morning, were, when not sober, returning over the moor, when, on passing the gibbet on which the gaunt skeleton of the malefactor still hung, as it had for years, in chains, one of them, saying, “Let’s ha’ a rap at him,” picked up a stone and threw it, knocking off the bones of two of the fingers. These were picked up, and carefully carried home as trophies of the exploit; and some time afterwards, when trials in the manufacture of china were being made, they were brought out, calcined, and mixed with some of the body. Of this body a seal was made, “with a gibbet on it,” and the jug (Fig. [882]) just described. This story I had from the lips of one of the party of potters, a man then fast nearing “fourscore years and ten” in age. The horrible and brutal taste displayed by the potters has, it must be admitted, its use in authenticating the example, and in giving it, at all events, an approximate date.

The other example is a comport (Fig. [881]) of remarkably fine body and excellent glaze, and has a plant of the tiger-lily exquisitely painted of natural size, occupying the whole of its inside.

In fine cane-coloured ware, tea-services, jugs, &c., were made, and were ornamented with figures, borders, and other designs in relief. Of this kind of ware the accompanying engraving of a sugar-box will serve as an example. It is ornamented with figures, trophies, &c., in relief in black and is marked “Green’s Don Pottery.”

In green glazed ware flower-vases of large size, root-pots, dessert and other services; in red ware, scent jars of bold and good design, large-sized mignonette vases, and many other articles; and in “Egyptian black,” teapots, cream-ewers, jugs, &c., were made.

The “brown china” spoken of in the list of goods was the “Rockingham Ware,” which was attempted to be made at the Don Pottery, and is still made of the common marketable quality.

A considerable trade was carried on with Russia, with France and Belgium, and with South America, to which markets the greater part of the goods produced were consigned.

At the “Don Pottery” at the present day, Messrs. Barker produce all the usual varieties of the commoner classes of earthenware to a large extent; the works giving employment to between two and three hundred hands. In toilet services many excellent patterns are produced, both enamelled, gilt, and lustred. They also produce dinner, tea, dessert, and other services, as well as all the usual varieties of goods for home and foreign consumption, including in “Egyptian black,” teapots, cream-ewers, &c., Rockingham ware, and “cane,” or yellow ware.

Some of the painted patterns recently introduced are of good design, and their pressed jugs are of superior shape.

The marks adopted by these works have been but few, and these only very occasionally used. They are, so far as I have been able to ascertain, as follows:—“Don Pottery” pencilled in red on the bottom of the vessel, or “DON POTTERY” impressed on the bottom of the pieces.

GREEN
DON POTTERY

also impressed.

Fig. 884.

Fig. 885.

The first of these (Fig. [884]) was impressed, the second (Fig. [885]) was printed and transferred on the ware. It was the first mark used by Samuel Barker, and was adopted by him on purchasing the Don Pottery on its discontinuance by the Greens.

Fig. 886.

Fig. 887.

The first of these marks (Fig. [886]), also in transfer printing, an eagle displayed rising from out a ducal coronet, was adopted by the firm when it became Samuel Barker and Son, at which time the old mark was discontinued. The eagle displayed is not now used, the firm having adopted the old mark of the demi-lion rampant holding in his paws the pennon, and enclosed within a garter, beneath which are the initials of the firm, “S. B. & S.” (Fig. [887]) On the ribbon of the garter is usually given the name of the pottery, as for instance YORK.