Chats on Old Earthenware

by Arthur Hayden

Wedgwood's own estimate of the Elers is interesting. Speaking of what Elers did for Staffordshire he says, "It is now about eighty years since Mr. Elers came amongst us ... the improvements made (by him) in our manufactory were precisely these—glazing our common clays with salt which produced Pot d'grey or stoneware, and this after they had left the country was improved into white stoneware by using the pipe clay of this neighbourhood and mixing it with flint stones calcin'd and reduced by pounding in to a fine powder."

There is not a word about Dwight in all this; evidently Josiah seems not to have known of the legal action against Elers and one of his own kinsmen amongst others. The invention of flint is an allusion to Thomas Astbury about 1720, but Dwight also knew of this formula as his recorded notes prove.

To continue, "The next improvement by Mr. Elers was the refining of our common red clay by sifting and making it into tea and coffee ware in imitation of the Chinese red porcelain by the casting it in plaster moulds and turning it on the outside upon Lathes, and ornamenting it with the tea branch in relief, in imitation of the Chinese manner of ornamenting the ware. For these improvements—and very great ones they were—we are indebted to the very ingenious Messrs. Elers, and I shall gladly contribute all in my power to honour their memories and transmit to posterity the knowledge of the obligations we owe to them."

This is in respect to a jasper medallion portrait of John Philip Elers. Wedgwood is wrong in one or two particulars. The salt glaze question is open to doubt, and most certainly Elers never used moulds for their ware.

We give this as showing the continuity which existed between Elers and Wedgwood, the latter certainly owed his application of the ornamentation in relief to the method which Elers had introduced into Staffordshire. We do not say invented, because there is always Dwight standing in the background.

To give Elers his due he certainly set Staffordshire talking and wondering, and he unwittingly filled Twyford and Astbury with new ideas which they were not slow to adopt. Astbury comes as the echo which Elers left behind in Staffordshire, a substantial enough echo, for Astbury took his master's ideas and created a ware with white stamped ornaments in relief, to which his own name is given as a generic term. John Astbury the elder died in 1743, and Thomas, his son, commenced potting as early as 1723. And the Astburys rub shoulders with Thomas Whieldon, whose apprentice and sometime partner (1752–1758) was Josiah Wedgwood.

It will thus be seen that Thomas Whieldon (1740–1780) came upon the scene in the history of the Staffordshire potteries when the art was in a somewhat transitional stage. New fields were opening and new ideas developing that were shortly to bring English pottery into line with that on the Continent.

The position of Staffordshire Ware.—It is necessary to show the stage at which English pottery had arrived in order to place Whieldon aright and to show the various impulses which led to the outburst of potting which stirred Staffordshire. Stoneware in crude form or in highly finished foreign style in Cologne ware had been gaining ground since Tudor days. Later the use of delft had won favour and was still in full swing at Lambeth, at Bristol, and at Liverpool when Whieldon commenced potting. It had also become acclimatised in Staffordshire. Toft's and other slip ware was contemporary with delft as a native art. And now, looking forward, we see the oncoming triumph of stoneware, in its finely potted and highly artistic Staffordshire form, which was to overthrow delft and slip ware, and in turn be stamped out by the utilitarian cream ware of Whieldon's apprentice, Josiah Wedgwood, who built up his fortune at Etruria on this domestic ware.

The Whieldon period (1740–1780) was an important one in ceramic events. In 1744 Bow commenced to make porcelain. In 1745 is the earliest dated piece of Chelsea porcelain, the year that the Pretender won the battle of Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, and invaded England, bringing his army as far as Derby. In 1750, Derby made earthenware, and in 1751 commenced to make porcelain, which is the same year in which Worcester commenced a glorious record in the making of porcelain. Longton Hall, Bristol, and Liverpool continued the same story, and transfer-printing was practised at Worcester by Hancock on porcelain, and at Liverpool on delft tiles by Sadler and Green. Lowestoft opened a kiln in 1756. Leeds ware was made in 1760, and, finally, Wedgwood's queen's ware in 1762, and four years before Whieldon gave up his work Wedgwood had invented his jasper ware.

Whieldon as a potter.—Not a great deal is known of Whieldon's personality. He must have commenced in a small way of business as he tramped from place to place with specimens of his wares on his back in pedlar fashion. But he became of considerable importance as he held the office of High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1786, some six years after he retired from his pottery. Whieldon numbered among his apprentices some young men who afterwards became famous. There was Josiah Wedgwood, who became his partner from 1753 to 1759, Josiah Spode, and William Greatbach, Edge, Heath, Marsh, and there was Aaron Wood, who was employed at Little Fenton for some time. On account of his apprentices having become famous, it has been suggested that he was probably indebted to them for much of his fame. On reflection it may possibly be seen that the opposite conclusion may very well be true, and it is not improbable that Wedgwood and Spode and Greatbach and the others owed a considerable debt to Whieldon for having received a highly technical training at his hands.