Scale 100 yards to the inch
Based on a plan by Enoch Wood
If the old potters had had to rely only on the thrower’s wheel for their shapes, no improvement in whiteness of ware, or in the salt glaze, would have availed much to increase the demand for earthenware. The development of the various use of moulds became of the greatest importance. The six workmen required at such a potworks, as is shown on the 1710 list, would be—slipmaker, thrower, turner, “stouker,” to put on handles and spouts, fireman and warehouseman. A good workman, such as the master, could throw, turn and stouk. But the fresh developments of the salt-glazed stoneware arising from the use of moulds converted potting into a specialized industry.
We have seen that Elers used metal seals to press his ornamental “spriggs” on to his teapots. Such metal moulds could only be used for small articles or ornaments, for the mould stuck to the clay, and had to be carefully oiled. Both for the “sprigging on” of ornaments, and for the shaping of ware, a new form of mould was wanted. At first the alabaster of Derbyshire supplied the want. It was carved into shaped blocks, and from the blocks were made “pitcher,” or porous clay moulds, which could be replaced when worn out from the blocks, and could be used in various ways for the manufacture of ware: for sprigging, pressing, or “casting.” Then—a last step—about 1745, Ralph Daniel, of Cobridge, brought from France the secret of plaster of Paris moulds which replaced both pitcher and alabaster.[51]
Under competition, the Staffordshire potters were getting critical. The white salt-glazed ware was competing with Chinese porcelain, and had to be made as thin and light and transparent as possible. The ware made by pressing the clay into the moulds sufficed for plates, basins and any lead-glazed ware, but it came out much too heavy for complicated shapes such as sauce-boats, teapots and vases, etc. To get these shapes Elers would have had them thrown and turned down in the lathe: they would all have been round. The process known as “casting” in a mould produced a finer result, and gave infinite scope for variation. In casting, the clay is run in a liquid form into a porous mould. After standing a few minutes, the slip is run out again, leaving behind a clay shell. This “cast” shell, taken out when dry, may be as fine and as varied in shape as the skill of the potter and the heat of his furnace will permit.
The process of casting came into use about 1730, and the carving of these moulds (in alabaster first, from which the “pitcher” mould could be made), became the most critical operation of all the potter’s work. This work required all the skill and artistic instinct of the carver and of the designer. Block-cutters, as they were called, became famous. The best known were the two brothers, Aaron and Ralph Wood of Burslem. Aaron Wood (1717-85) was bound apprentice in 1731 to Dr Thomas Wedgwood, some of whose best models he is supposed to have made.[52] He afterwards worked for J. Mitchell, of Burslem,[53] and for Wheildon of Fenton, acquiring such a reputation that he was allowed to work in a locked room, that his art might thereby be kept secret.
CHAPTER V.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FACTORY.
The industry was entering on a new phase. The introduction of moulds had required specialized block-cutters, flat and hollow-ware pressers and casters. And the specializing in the mixtures of the clay body lead to further changes. Till 1740 the same clay body served for both salt glaze and lead glaze, but about this time manufacturers began to specialize in either salt or lead glaze, and to use different bodies and mixtures to suit the varied glazes.
And, just as they had to arrange to import clays, so they had also to arrange to export their wares. A London agent, a Liverpool agent, perhaps a Birmingham agent became necessary. This sort of business could no longer be carried on by a master potter on sixteen shillings a week. The master potter became a capitalist. No business could be successfully carried on with a turnover of one ovenful a week. The first attempt to increase the output was made by either one Shrigley, of Burslem Hadderidge,[54] or by John Mitchell of the Hill Top.[55] As no potter, so goes the story, had ever had more than one oven, their inventive faculty went no farther than to construct a larger oven than usual. The pioneer, whoever he was, built a new one so large that it collapsed, to the great joy of his conservative rivals. Soon afterwards, however, the Baddeleys, said to have been the sons of a Moddershall flint-grinder, put up behind their factory at Shelton a row of no fewer than four ovens; and about 1743, Thomas and John Wedgwood, known as “of the Big House,” built a tiled factory with five ovens.[56]