HERBERT MINTON
1793-1858
Mintons have long been the historic rivals of Copeland, late Spode. Their factories are almost side by side in Stoke, lying along the Newcastle canal, which was cut in 1795. Just across the Trent, too, lay Whieldon’s old works at Little Fenton. Wedgwood, in his list of the potters of 1715, says that there were then only two factories in Stoke—Ward’s and Poulson’s. He meant probably that the factories carried on when he wrote in 1785 by Ward and Poulson were in existence in 1715. However that may be, in 1793 Thomas Minton, financed by a Mr Pownall, joined Joseph Poulson, a practical potter already at work, and began to make “blue-printed” ware at Stoke.[150] A few years later they began to make porcelain. In 1802 the firm was “Minton, Poulson & Co.,” and by 1817 it had become “Thomas Minton & Sons.” This first Minton died in 1836, and it was his son, Herbert Minton (1793-1858), that brought the Minton china to its highest perfection, and started the manufacture of encaustic and dust tiles.
A word should be said here on the methods of gilding—so marked a feature of both Spode and Minton china. Originally, when gilding was put on the ware, it was laid on in the form of gold-leaf, and attached with printers’ size. This sort of gilding does not usually wear well, and it was only in his very late years that Wedgwood began to burn gold into the ware.[151] About 1790, the method of painting on the gold with mercury, and burnishing it afterwards, was introduced from the Continent, and a new decoration was super-imposed upon the already overladen ware. It is only within the last decade that a form of liquid gold has been discovered which requires no burnishing, and yet is fairly durable.
Another form of decoration in which gold was employed was lustre ware. Mr Burton thinks the application of a gold lustre to Staffordshire pottery was introduced first about 1792 at Etruria, and was used on Wedgwood’s “Pearl” dessert ware, made in the form of shells. If this lustre, or silver lustre, is laid on thickly, it converts the earthenware in appearance into gold or silver plate—an inartistic transformation. When, however, the lustre is thinly applied, the glaze of the ware is stained to a purplish-pink colour, on which the metallic lustre sparkles like shot silk. The newly discovered metal platinum was used to produce the similar silver lustre, and during the period 1792-1810 many fine pieces were produced by the Wedgwoods (and by, among others, John Aynsley of Longton), covered with either the gold or silver plating or lustre.[152]
Other Stoke potters at the end of the eighteenth century were the Booths of Cliff Bank, and Thomas Woolfe. Their factories are both shown on the map of the Potteries in 1802 which is here inserted. Hugh Booth (1732-89)[153] made a considerable fortune, and was succeeded by his brother and nephews, Ephraim, Hugh and Joseph Booth. Thomas Woolfe (died 1818)[154] contests with the elder Spode[155] the credit of being the first to employ steam power in their factories, to drive the flint and glaze mills. Both Aikin and Shaw agree in dating this innovation about 1793. Woolfe’s son-in-law, Robert Hamilton, joined the firm for a time, but before 1817 the factories of both Woolfe and the Booths had passed into the hands of William Adams (1772-1829), the successful progenitor of the present potting family of Adams.
CHAPTER IX.
METHODISM AND THE CAPITALISTS.
Yet another Staffordshire family founded on “blue-printed” ware is that of Ridgway. Ralph Ridgway was a master-potter at Chell, who failed in business in 1766, and departed with his family to Swansea, where the manufacture of porcelain was just commencing.[156] His younger son, Job (1759-1813), returned to the Potteries in 1781, and divided his time between acting as a Wesleyan missionary and work as a journeyman potter in Hanley.[157] There for some time he also manufactured lawn for the sieves used in sifting the clay slip, but this he gave up, on the strange ground that it led to bribery and drunkenness, and returned to his potter’s bench. At last, in 1792, he and his brother George started a factory of their own in Shelton, at the bottom of Albion Street, said to have been formerly that of Warner Edwards.[158] It has been the “Bell Works,” from the Blue Bell Inn which stood opposite. Of course they made “blue printed,” and prospered. In 1802 Job left his brother, and built the well-known house and works at Cauldon Place on the Cauldon canal, now occupied by the porcelain works of Brown, Westhead, Moore & Co.[159] At Cauldon Place the firm, “Job Ridgway & Sons,” began in 1808 to make china. Here, too, Job died in 1813, and was succeeded by his son John Ridgway, under whom the Cauldon Place china achieved so great renown. His other son William went back to the Bell Works, and, adding factory to factory, soon became by far the most important potter in Hanley.