In Longton the firm of Charles Harvey is notable, since the proprietor became, about 1820, the first banker at the Longton end. Mrs Mary Cyples represents a family of potteresses whose factory is perpetuated in Cyples Lane. Messrs Cheetham and Wooley invented a hard white stone body resembling porcelain, very useful for relief decoration,[164] and flourished in Commerce Street for more than half a century. The Locketts are one of the few firms which have lasted over a hundred years.
The potting industry, like all others, suffered stagnation during the French wars. Till 1810 however the growing American trade compensated to a certain extent for the loss of the continental market. But in 1810 the Orders in Council stopped both the continental and American trade. These Orders were rescinded in 1812, but the continental trade languished till 1814, and had to be rediscovered and re-established as an entirely new business when peace came.
When at last the Continent was reopened to English china and earthenware one particular firm came to the front and took the greater part of the ornamental trade. This was the firm of John Davenport & Sons. John Davenport came of a small yeoman family settled near Leek, and he started in 1785, first as a workman and later as a partner, with Thomas Woolfe of Stoke. In 1794 he commenced making china on his own account at Longport.[165]
The first factory built on the canal at Longport was, appropriately enough, put up in 1773 by John Brindley, the younger brother of the engineer. Edward Bourne and Robert Williamson followed, and in 1795 Walter Daniel put up a fine house and factory at Newport near by. All these factories became, early in the nineteenth century, the property of the great firm of Davenport, attached to the “Unicorn Bank.” John Davenport had built the “Unicorn Bank” in 1794 for the manufacture of china. In 1797 they started the chemical preparation of litharge and white lead; and in 1801 was added the manufacture of flint glass.[166]
Davenport china and stained glass attained a very high reputation, and for many years the Davenports represented the type of the most successful potters of the age. They are said in 1836 to have produced earthenware and china alone to the value of nearly £100,000 and to have employed 1400 workpeople.[167] They had branch establishments at London, Liverpool, Hamburg and Lübeck. They enjoyed Royal favour and acquired princely fortunes. The first John Davenport bought Westwood near Cheddleton in 1813. He was a major of volunteers at the time of the French scare in 1803, and Conservative M.P. for Stoke-on-Trent from 1832 to 1841. His sons, John, Henry and William carried on the business and established themselves, John at Foxley, Co. Hereford, and William at Maer. William Davenport was Master of the North Staffordshire Foxhounds. The third generation also went into politics, and Henry T. Davenport, after failing to secure a seat at Newcastle and at Stoke in 1874, became, from 1880-6, member for the northern division of the county. As they lost touch with their works, however, the affairs of the Davenport firm gradually suffered. In 1868 they sold Westwood; in 1885 Maer; and in 1887 the “Unicorn Bank” was closed down and sold to Mr Thomas Hughes, who died in 1901.
The Davenports were the only manufacturers of glass of any importance in North Staffordshire, and no attempt is now made to rival the productions in this line of the southern part of the county.
The success of the Davenports with their china in the continental trade, which began to be marked during the short peace of 1803-4, affected, no doubt seriously, the trade of the Wedgwood firm, which since the first Josiah’s death had been carried on nominally by the second Josiah, but actually by Thomas Byerley. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in 1805 Wedgwoods also commenced the manufacture of porcelain, and to find them repeating on china dinner and tea services the patterns which had been so successful on the Queen’s Ware. Josiah Wedgwood II bought Maer in 1803 (where he was succeeded by Davenport), and began again to attend to business. Though the new china and the jasper and black basalt with reliefs in Egyptian red turned out under his regime fully maintained the reputation of the firm—as witness the medallions of the admirals and the Egyptian basalt so typical of the second period[168]—yet they never recovered the undisputed position they had held in the ornamental trade of the Continent.