The family of Baddeley continued as master potters in Shelton into the nineteenth century. They were, with the exception of Wedgwood and possibly Warburton, the largest exporters of earthenware of their day.[57] Their cream colour was good, but their renown with later generations is due to their basket-pattern salt glaze, often perforated. John Baddeley died in 1772, but the family carried on the making of enamelled and plain salt glaze to a later date than other manufacturers, certainly after 1780, and good salt glaze of late date is usually ascribed to the Baddeleys of Shelton.[58] The Wedgwoods of the Big House made the white salt glaze of a somewhat earlier description—the cast hexagonal cups and teapots in plain white—and with such financial success, that they built for themselves in 1750 a “Big House” in Burslem, which stands to this day at the corner of the Market Place looking south down the new Waterloo Road.[59] It is now the Conservative Club. Thomas was an expert thrower to begin with, and John the best oven fireman in the town.[60] They retired from business in 1765 with a large fortune.
It is said that in 1750 no fewer than sixty factories were making salt glaze in the Potteries, and every Saturday, for five hours at the time of firing up, the whole country was black with the smoke of the burning salt—so black, it is said, that people groped their way through the streets of Burslem. But meanwhile Enoch Booth at Tunstall had invented the fluid lead-glaze destined in time to turn plain earthenware into “cream-colour”; Josiah Wedgwood at Burslem was already devising new mixtures which should convert “cream-colour” into “Queen’s Ware”; and in Hot Lane, near by, John Warburton was starting that enamelling work which, applied to the Queen’s Ware, was to make it the standard earthenware of the whole world. These three potters were to alter entirely the course of the industry, and make salt glaze a thing of the past, for museums and collections. Unfortunately they did not abolish the smoke.
Enoch Booth had married Ann, daughter of Thomas Child of Tunstall. It was on his father-in-law’s land that, about 1745, he started the first considerable earthenware factory in Tunstall. Booth was the legitimate successor of Astbury. He took the earthenware body, white as Astbury had left it, and, instead of using it for salt glaze, he worked out the most suitable lead glaze, and the best way of applying it to the piece. Instead of dusting it over the ware in the dangerous dry condition, he ground the lead ore up with flint and clay and water. Into this fluid glaze the ware was dipped. Not only did this give a uniform glossy coat on each piece of ware, but different pieces were all glazed alike. Booth had the ware dipped after it had been fired, while it was in the porous or “biscuit” condition but sufficiently firm to be handled. A second firing to fuse on the glaze was given to the ware after dipping. These two firings, in the biscuit oven and in the “glost” oven, are the ordinary processes of manufacture to this day. Shaw gives 1750 as the date of this important improvement;[61] it is possible that fluid glazes were used before this and by others, but it was the combination of fluid glaze and double firing that is important, and this with some certainty we may put down to Enoch Booth and the year 1750.
Booth’s original factory at Tunstall was probably the “Old Bank” at the corner of Cross Street and Well Street, but he extended his works at an early date over the whole of the area now bounded by Well Street, Market Square, High Street and Calver Street, where he built the Phœnix Works. Sometime before 1781[62] he had been succeeded by Anthony Keeling who had married his daughter Ann. Anthony Keeling built Calver House in 1793, but his trade suffered in the French wars, and in 1810 he retired from business and went to Liverpool where he died in 1816.[63] The Phœnix Works were carried on by Thomas Goodfellow till they were pulled down about 1860.
Ware, besides being thrown, moulded or cast, and coated with the transparent glaze of salt or lead, requires decoration. This decoration could be given by coloured clay slips, after the manner of the old Toft dishes, or after the manner of Ralph Shaw’s “graffiato” ware, or as what is called “scratched blue.” But decoration could also be given by means of enamelling paints. Paints that is which are mixed with glass, and, on being heated, fuse into the glaze and become fast. This enamelling was in the early days a special trade and no part of the potter’s business. The shopkeeper might, if he liked, employ somebody called an enameller to enamel his particular cups and saucers. The enameller used a small “muffle” stove where the ware could be heated sufficiently to fuse the glaze and paint together, while at the same time it was kept away from direct contact with flames or smoke.
Scratched blue salt glaze cup, dated 1750. From the Stoke-on-Trent Museums.
The best enamellers were to be found in London, engaged in enamelling the porcelain of Bow and Chelsea; but it soon became obvious that enamellers were wanted in the Staffordshire potteries also. It was again two Dutchmen who initiated into this art the native potters of Staffordshire. They probably knew the Warburtons and set up their enamelling ovens near them in Hot Lane.[64] Here they worked and attempted to keep their art secret, with the usual result of attracting special attention. Their stoves, their mixtures and their temperatures soon became public property, and a regular enamelling industry was soon established round Hot Lane. It is said to have been Ralph Daniel, the man who had brought the secret of plaster of Paris moulds from Paris, who did most to develop enamelling.[65] He imported workmen from London, Bristol and Liverpool, and soon after 1750 the enamelling of earthenware and salt glaze became a Staffordshire industry. Among enamellers too should be mentioned a Shelton potter, Walter Edwards, who was chemist and enameller as well as potter. He had as partner the Rev. John Middleton, curate of Hanley from 1737-1802, but Edwards, unlike the curate, died young in 1753, leaving a book full of receipts for glazes and enamels. The difficulty always was to get metallic oxides which would stand heat.
From an artistic point of view they had much better have left their salt glaze plain white, or drab, or uniformly tinted by a slip dip. The salt-glaze body compared with Chinese porcelain; their painting did not compare with Chinese painting, or only compared in an unfortunate sense for Staffordshire. Earthenware, being made for use, had less decoration, and what it got was less gaudy and more suited for serviceable articles.
