Enamelled salt glaze jug, probably by Baddeley of Shelton, dated 1760. From the Stoke-on-Trent Museums. The jug was a presentation piece from the Rev. J. Middleton, who was a partner with the above Baddeley.
There was however one very successful, or at least artistically successful, manner of colouring the salt glaze. It was practised by William Littler and Aaron Wedgwood (1717-1763), two brothers-in-law who about 1740 were making salt-glaze pottery at Brownhills. Taking a hint from Astbury, they dipped their ware in a bath of carefully lawned slip, so as to gave it a smooth surface before firing. In this slip they proceeded to put cobalt, which gave a beautiful uniform blue to the whole piece, and this smooth blue body, under the salt glaze, acquired a tint of great brilliance. On the strength of Shaw’s account of this process,[66] many writers have mistakenly attributed to William Littler and Aaron Wedgwood the first introduction of liquid glazes, but it is quite clear, as Mr Burton has pointed out, that this was no leaded blue glaze, but a blue slip subsequently glazed with salt.[67]
Their success with the salt glaze induced Littler and Wedgwood to make the first attempt to produce real porcelain in Staffordshire. The proper distinction between earthenware and porcelain is the complete vitrification of the body in the case of porcelain, as opposed to the vitrifying and glazing of the surface only in the case of earthenware.
The Bow porcelain factory had started in 1744, Chelsea in 1745, Worcester in 1751. In 1752 Littler and Wedgwood left their Brownhills factory and removed to Longton Hall. Here they began to make the well-known Longton Hall porcelain. Perhaps Wedgwood or Littler had worked at Chelsea. However that may be, the porcelain manufactured was of the Chelsea type. The body was largely made of ground glass, while china clay, the basis of true porcelain, was not used at all. The characteristic feature of this Longton Hall porcelain is the bright under-glaze blue that previously adorned Littler’s salt-glaze ware. This Longton Hall factory only continued till 1758.[68] Owing to the lack of demand for this kind of ware, they lost all their money in the venture and finally discontinued it. The stock-in-trade is said to have been bought up by Duesbury, who transferred it to the Derby porcelain factory, started in 1756.[69] It was not till the discovery of China Clay and China Stone and of their fusing properties in 1768 that porcelain was again attempted in Staffordshire. Through his daughter Ann this Aaron Wedgwood was the grandfather of William Clowes, known as the “founder” of Primitive Methodism.
While the manufacture of salt glaze was flourishing, more especially at the northern end of the district, the old soft-fired earthenware, mottled, black and cloudy, was still being made, and the old slip decorated ware had not entirely vanished. But the only famous potter in what might be called the old Staffordshire style was Thomas Whieldon.
Thomas Whieldon began making pots at Little Fenton about 1740. He was a better educated class of man than the ordinary potter. He potted well; enjoyed trials and experiments for their own sake; and, through his connection with both Wedgwood and Spode, he may be said to have had the same influence on the taste and education of the Staffordshire potters that Elers had unintentionally half a century before. If we are to believe Shaw, writing in 1828, he began in a very humble way. He says: “In 1740 Mr Thomas Whieldon’s manufactory at Little Fenton consisted of a small range of low buildings, all thatched. His early productions were knife hafts for the Sheffield cuttlers; and snuffboxes for the Birmingham hardwaremen, to finish with hoops, hinges and springs; which he himself usually carried in a basket to the tradesmen; and being much like agate they were greatly in request.”[70]
Plot mentions how the old potters used to marble their ware by combing together the different coloured slips, just as the paper on the inside of book-bindings is now marbled. Whieldon carried on this imitation work, and made it artistic and important. Instead, however, of marbling the slip or the glaze, he marbled his clay body in the solid. Flat “bats” of clay of different colours—coloured either naturally or else artificially with manganese, cobalt or copper—were laid on each other, and pressed and sliced again and again; care being taken to preserve the same run of the grain. In this way a streaked body was produced, which, when pressed into moulds, retained the curious markings of agate or marble. This was Whieldon’s “solid agate,” with which the new trade in snuff boxes and knife handles was supplied.[71]
He made toys, too, and chimney ornaments of this same new material, or else glazed with brilliant coloured glazes in splashes of irregular colour. He made larger goods also—teapots, dishes and vases in solid agate. All these were pressed in moulds; and for moulder or block-cutter he had, from about 1746 onwards, the celebrated Aaron Wood. The cream-coloured body, with Enoch Booth’s transparent lead glaze, afforded Whieldon another material on which to work. He took the colourless fluid glaze and turned it madder brown with manganese, or yellow with iron oxide, or green with copper, or blue with cobalt. Then he mixed them to give every shade of coloured glaze, and laid these glazes on the ware to give infinite variety. In this way he produced those beautiful tortoiseshell wares for which he is most renowned. His agate ware is solid; his tortoiseshell ware is a glaze.[72]
He had acquired fame as a skilful potter before Josiah Wedgwood joined him in 1754, and probably produced already both the solid agate and the tortoiseshell. In his last popular production—the melon, cauliflower, and pineapple wares, with their brilliant green glaze—it is probable that Wedgwood’s incessant experiments played a decisive part.