Samuel Hollins (1774–1816), with his red and chocolate unglazed ware decorated with ornament in the Elers manner and made from the clay at Bradwell Wood, is deservedly noteworthy as well as for several important departures in colour in the stoneware teapots and coffee-pots which he made of green, with touches of applied ornament in blue jasper. He followed silver designs, and avoided the cold, classic forms of Wedgwood. He departed from the straight lines of the Turner teapot. He loved ornament, and there is a touch of elaboration in his design, as though attempting to shake off the severe formality of the Brothers Adam style of design, and he strongly loved colour.
Samuel Hollins was one of the proprietors in the New Hall china works, and his successors were T. and J. Hollins, who continued to make jasper ware in the style of Wedgwood. Their names are impressed on many examples.
The Wedgwood influence.—In the latter days of the eighteenth century and the early days of the nineteenth, the direct influence of Wedgwood became something more remote. But even in early nineteenth-century days there were undeniable traces of the old models and the old form of ware. Take, for example, the unmarked early nineteenth-century Black Basalt Teapot in the form of a barrel, with the grape-vine ornament in relief, and the pine cone at top of lid (illustrated [p. 277]). Undoubtedly this has left all classic form, but it has retained the technique of Wedgwood. In some of the buff-coloured, unglazed stoneware jugs which are unmarked, there is the inclination to follow the sporting subjects in relief, which Adams and Turner and Spode so successfully adopted, and the twisted snake-handle and reptilian-modelled mouth become original in treatment. In general, it may be said, that the classic influence remained for a considerable time in the stoneware of various kinds, but in the cream-ware which is the main stream of English earthenware, the forms and the ornamentation more rapidly departed from the styles of Wedgwood's queen's ware.
Hence we find two opposing influences working against each other in the Staffordshire potters' minds. The best of them in their highest flights essayed to make jasper, or to copy or emulate Wedgwood's classic style in vases and important ornamental pieces. Most of them largely made the stoneware of various colours, and also the black basalt. All of them made cream-ware, which was the staple ware of Staffordshire, in a thousand different forms. As time went on all except cream-ware began to deteriorate from the earliest prototypes, and the later forms are debased in design and inferior in potting.
SPODE STONEWARE JUG.
Rich blue glazed ground with decoration of hunting scene in white relief.
DAVENPORT STONEWARE JUG.
Same design as adjacent jug, but having white ground with subject in relief.
(In the possession of Mr. Hubert Gould.)
BLACK BASALT TEAPOT.
In the form of a barrel, with grape-vine decoration in relief.
(Early nineteenth century.)