Staffordshire pottery and its history

by Josiah C. Wedgwood

The answer, dated June 8, 1694, of the man with the Staffordshire name of Garner to this Bill of Complaint, shows that he was apprenticed about 1680 for eight years to one Thomas Harper of Southwark, potmaker, and he says that, afterwards, he invented a way of making earthen brown pans and mugs, which art he still practises. The answer of David Elers to the same Bill, dated July 28, 1693, states that he learnt at Cologne the manufacture of “earthenware commonly called Cologne or Stone wares,” and that about three years ago he and his brother began to make brown mugs and red teapots “within this kingdom of England,” and employed John Chandler. He says that neither he nor his brother nor Morley nor any of the other defendants knew John Chandler while he was in the employ of Dwight. He denies that James Morley was ever a partner with him or his brother, or that Chandler was more than a hired labourer. He complains that he and his brother ought not to be deprived of their living.

An order was made on August 10, 1693, for a trial of the action against Morley and the Elers for the making of a brown mug and two red teapots in imitation of china. Before the trial came on in November the Elers came to terms with Dwight, and Morley put off his case by claiming that he only made brown mugs and not the red teapots. On December 15, 1693, the three Wedgwoods were ordered to be added to the Bill as defendants, and on May 5, 1694, Matthew Garner was added also. On May 19, 1694, the Wedgwoods “for delay have craved a dedimus to answer in the country,” and yet in the meantime proceed to make and vend the several wares, against which continuance the plaintiff Dwight obtained an injunction “until they shall directly answer to the complaint and the Court shall make other order to the contrary against them their workmen servants and agents.” On June 21, 1694, a similar injunction was obtained against Matthew Garner; and on July 26, 1695, against Morley. Garner in his turn wanted his witnesses examined in the country, and the cases against him and Morley and one Luke Talbott dragged on till July, 1696, though nothing more is to be found of the suit against the Wedgwoods. Probably they too compromised on the basis of each paying their own costs, for the last notice there is of these suits is one dated July 1, 1696, which shows Dwight suing his solicitor for excessive costs.

Earliest known piece of Staffordshire salt glaze ware, 1701. From the Stoke-on-Trent Museums.

This suit, given by Professor Church in the “Burlington Magazine” (February, 1908) upsets a good many preconceptions, and throws considerable light on the stage at which the development of the potting craft had arrived in 1693. In the first place Garner, a Staffordshire lad to judge from his name, is apprenticed to a London potter. This shows communication between London and Staffordshire, and a clear desire to improve a potting trade in Staffordshire by contact with more civilized methods. Then the injunction obtained against Aaron Wedgwood and his sons, “Doctor” Thomas and Richard “of the Overhouse,” shows that they were making in 1693 the red teapots, known to collectors as Elers and Dwight, and the brown stoneware which, glazed with salt, was later the characteristic work of Dr Thomas Wedgwood. We must, therefore, call these Wedgwoods and Matthew Garner the first known Staffordshire makers of stoneware, and as Garner was out of his apprenticeship in 1688, and Elers started in Fulham in 1690, we can give the date 1690 as the starting point of the stoneware glazed with salt in Staffordshire.

If there was a definite partnership between the Elers and the Wedgwoods I expect it was confined to the supply of red Staffordshire clay to the factory at Fulham. It may well be that, as a result of this very action, the Elers determined to shift their workshops and put them up in the place whence hitherto they had got their clay, and where the unfortunate leakage that had perhaps betrayed Dwight’s secrets could, in their case, be more easily prevented. Be the cause what it may, between 1693 and 1698 John Philip Elers, the elder brother, was established in a secluded farm in Bradwell Wood under Red Street. It should be noticed that at this time, and for half a century afterwards, Red Street was important as a potting village. Messrs Mayer & Moss of Red Street were, about 1740, among the most considerable potters of their day.

Here, at Bradwell, the Elers put up their workshops and small kiln, while they lived at another old house, Dimsdale Hall, which is still standing about a mile to the south. Shaw[19] had a legend about an elaborate underground speaking-tube, fixed from Bradwell to Dimsdale, through which notice might be given to the works of the approach of strangers. And it is a curious tribute to the value of such legends that, within the last few years, white earthenware voice-pipes have actually been dug up on the site of the Bradwell factory. They did not, of course, really extend from Bradwell to Dimsdale, but they went from one part of the factory to another, and were probably devised to secure secrecy rather than modern economy. These pipes are now to be seen in the Hanley Museum, and the curious thing is that one of them is glazed with salt. This, besides confirming the legend of the voice-pipes, is the only certain living witness that the Elers used salt glaze.

We have spoken of the two brothers going to Staffordshire, but the recently accepted view is that John Philip Elers alone worked at Bradwell, while David remained in London at the shop in the Poultry, where he sold his brother’s teapots at from 12s. to 24s. apiece.[20]

The first pottery ware made at Bradwell was the same as Dwight’s “red porcelaine.” On the land at Bradwell Farm was the seam of red clay which formed the foundation of the ware, giving when fired a dense hard red stoneware of fine texture.[21] There are in the South Kensington Museum two pieces of “red porcelain” credited by Burton to Elers and illustrated in his book. They are in marked contrast to the slip decorated and marbled Staffordshire ware of the same time. They have been turned in the lathe after throwing, and thus made thin and light. The clay body is homogeneous and smooth, showing greater care in the preparation of the body. The ornamentation is delicate and artistic, and has been made by sealing a soft piece of the clay on to the ware with a metal seal pressed over the soft clay. There is no glaze, but a high fire has produced a ware so hard as to be almost forged solid. These things show the hand of the ex-silversmith in size and shape and finish. The Burslem imitators—Garner and the Wedgwoods—never made things like these. Elers, though he may have stolen Dwight’s secrets, went ahead and showed the possibilities of potting. He is said also to have produced black ware of a similar character by mixing oxide of manganese—the “magnus” of Dr Plot—with the clay body, and, though no known pieces of black Elers ware can now be certainly identified, it is this black ware that his copyists chiefly developed.[22]