Staffordshire pottery and its history

by Josiah C. Wedgwood

While Mintons, Copelands and Wedgwoods were producing the most costly porcelain, the trade in the commoner china had centred more and more at the Longton end of the Potteries. Charles J. Mason with his “ironstone china” at Fenton between 1820 and 1850 was the precursor of this trade, and it was on this export trade that Longton grew so rapidly throughout the 19th century. The manufacture of cheap “jet” and “rockingham” has become of recent years an important branch of manufacture at this Longton end, and very opportunely, for the cheap china trade has suffered more than any other from the German and Dutch competition. Messrs Wileman’s factory at the Foley, now owned by Mr Percy Shelley, is the most important, but the Longton china trade generally is in the hands of small men. A great part of this china trade was formerly with America, and, apart from ornamental potting, it has always been the solid American trade which has made the fortunes of the Staffordshire potters. In the forties the chief exporters of earthenware to America were Enoch Wood of Fountain Place, and Samuel Alcock of the Hill Top Works, both in Burslem. Samuel Alcock had several factories in Burslem, and deserves mention for his “Parian” figures, but his great trade was in plain white and cream colour with the United States.[203] Alcock’s old Hill Top Works, where John Mitchell once used to entertain Wesley, belong now to Samuel Johnson, noted for his tea-pots.

The close of the American war, 1865, saw the rise of another potting firm destined to grow to importance in the American trade. This was the firm of James and George Meakin. They were the sons of James Meakin, who had been a small master-potter in Hanley, and they produced an uniform hard white earthenware called “granite”—serviceable, plain and cheap. James Meakin, a man of great business capacity, financed and gradually came to control a large proportion of the American buyers, and all through the seventies this firm almost monopolized the trade of the United States in cheap earthenware. James Meakin bought Darlaston Hall, and died in 1885. His “Eagle Works” at Hanley are now carried on by his sons Kenneth and Bernard and by his nephew George Meakin of Cresswell Hall. Alfred Meakin started a similar manufacture at the Victoria and Albert Works in Tunstall in 1874, now taken over by Johnson Bros. These Johnsons, too, nephews of James Meakin, began soon after 1880 to rival the Eagle Works in the production of “granite” and plain printed ware. They have now no less than five factories in Hanley, Tunstall and Burslem specially equipped for this trade. The fourth of the firms known as “The Big American Four” (now reduced to three) is that of W. H. Grindley, who began in 1887 to make “granite” at Wood and Challenor’s old Woodland Works in Tunstall. His new factory at Brownhills is said to afford the best example of up-to-date economical manufacture, and stands out in striking contrast to most of the older “artistic” works. Another factory which owes its reputation to strict specialization and the latest economical machinery is that of Samuel Gibson, in the Moorland Road, at Burslem. Here five hundred men and girls make tea-pots for the world—only tea-pots—in jet and brown and rockingham.

The china trade and the American “granite” trade had their best days from 1870 to 1876. No doubt the general expansion of trade and the temporary absence of foreign competition were the chief factors in producing this prosperity. But a great deal was due to the increased use of steam power and the introduction of automatic machinery, and also to the institution of the Potteries Board of Conciliation and Arbitration.

The clay filter press, with its steam slip-pumps—patented by Needham and Kite in 1856—had replaced the old method of evaporating the moisture out of the clay slip; and during the seventies a mechanical steam-driven “blunger” and a similar “pug-mill” did away with the old laborious “blunging” and “wedging” in the preparation of the clay body. Then that form of the thrower’s wheel, known as the plate “jigger”—which revolved the flat plate moulds—came to be driven by steam instead of by a boy at the wheel handle; and instead of the skilled hand of the flat-presser, a mechanical “form” or “jolly” was used to press the “bat” on to the mould, and give the plate the right contour and thickness.[204]

Such machines for making plates had been invented as long ago as 1845, but for twenty years the objections of the workmen and practical imperfections had postponed their introduction. The “form” used to be applied by hand, and the plates consequently varied in thickness, and it required great skill on the part of the presser to make them properly. The machine, on the other hand, made every plate exactly alike, and made them ten times as quickly as the old hand process. This machine did away with the work of the old skilled “flat-pressers,” and was in general use by 1870. A similar machine, with a somewhat more complicated “jolly,” or “form,” made hollow-ware, such as basins and cups, or even bellied ware, such as ewers or chamber-pots. These came into use gradually from 1870 onwards, and replaced much of the work of hollow-ware pressers and throwers. Then in the eighties came a machine for flattening out those bats of clay which were to be pressed on to the “jigger” moulds and “jollied” into flat or hollow ware.[205] About the same time, too, the steam drive came to be used for turning the thrower’s wheel and for the turner’s lathe—fitted with various devices for controlling the speed of revolution. The manufacture of potters’ machinery is now a considerable industry, and, thanks to the energy and inventive readiness of Messrs Boulton of Burslem, this industry also is centred in the Staffordshire Potteries, and has as wide a range of markets as the Staffordshire pots themselves.

The introduction of all these labour-saving appliances was facilitated by the co-operation of masters and men on an arbitration board. A Trades Union—the fourth—had been reconstituted in 1863 from a few surviving branches of the old Union. They started a fresh newspaper, “The Potteries Examiner,” under the able management of the new Leader, William Owen, the nephew of Robert Owen, the Socialist. By 1865 they were strong enough to strike against that good old trade custom—the annual hiring. The oven-men’s Union, always the most determined branch of the Potters Trades Unions, refused to give up the fight when the other trades were prepared to go in, and by holding out alone they at last succeeded in abolishing the annual hiring, and secured for the potter the right to give a month’s notice. This was in 1866, and the whole trade shared the benefits of the change.[206]

The Staffordshire Potters Unions seem at each burst of activity to have evolved some special enthusiasm or eccentricity. There was the attempt at co-operative manufacture in 1825; the enthusiastic idealism of Robert Owen in 1833; the attempt to put the unemployed on the land in Wisconsin, and so relieve the labour market, which absorbed the enthusiasm and funds of 1845-6; and now the new Union of 1863, under the guidance of William Owen, originated a far more important and practical movement—arbitration in industrial disputes.

At Nottingham, Mr Mundella had in 1867 established a Board of Arbitration in the stocking trade. Its success made it attractive to both masters and men. William Owen approached Mr Mundella, who brought his influence to bear successfully on the pottery masters also, and in July, 1868, a similar Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was established in the potting industry.[207] On it there were ten representatives of each side, who were wherever possible to decide questions that arose. When they could not agree an umpire was to be appointed, whose decision was to be binding. Such men as H. T. Davenport, M.P., Mr Mundella, Sir Thomas Brassey, “Tom” Hughes, have at different times been umpires.

At first the Board worked well. The introduction of each machine was made the occasion for a readjustment of prices; and, although the struggle over “good-from-oven” goes on to this day, the first step was taken before the Board in 1869 on the motion of one of the masters’ delegates, Mr Francis Wedgwood, to abolish this old trade custom and substitute “good-from-hand.”[208] An arbitration award in 1871 raised wages generally.[209]