But the strain came when the masters tried by arbitration to reduce wages. The award in 1877 went against them; in 1879, however, they were more fortunate, for Lord Hatherton awarded a reduction of 1d. in the shilling.[210] A journeyman potter’s wages may be said to have averaged 30s. a week when in full employ, and what are still remembered as “Lord Hatherton’s pennies” were a great grievance in the Potteries. Probably the Board would have broken down at once had it not been for Owen, and for the hope that arbitration next year would put it all right again. But Sir Thomas Brassey’s award on next year’s arbitration made no change,[211] and the Board broke down. At Martinmas 1881 a strike began. It was an immediate failure, for thirteen years of arbitration had sapped the strength of the Union.
For a short time—1885-91—an Arbitration Board was re-established, but it was tolerated rather than supported by either masters or men. In 1891 another award was given against the men, and the Board was painlessly extinguished by a strike of the fighting oven-men. Since then the Union has gradually gained strength, but even now, after a successful strike in 1900 which raised wages by 5 per cent. all round, the potters in all the Unions do not much exceed 20 per cent. of the adult male workers alone. Trades Unions have special difficulties in the Potteries owing to the large number of small masters employing only two or three people in each trade; owing to the prevailing piecework prices which makes the levelling up process difficult; and owing to the number of small Unions into which the working potters are divided. John Lovatt is at present the secretary of the General Union, while Alderman Thomas Edwards for long looked after the special interests of the oven-men.
Invention of recent years has busied itself mostly with the firing of the ovens. Mr J. P. Holdcroft, of Hanley, patented in 1898 a new thermoscope which directs with far greater certainty the exact heating of the ovens.[212] New methods of firing these ovens are also on trial. Both “Producer” and “Mond” gas have been tried and offer some hope not only of more regular firing, but also of abolishing the columns of smoke which have blackened the Potteries for 200 years. The “Climax Kiln” is another device of quite recent date for regulating the firing, and saving the piling up and unpiling of saggars of ware. The ware is packed in an iron cage on wheels and pulled in and out of the furnace mechanically, without drawing the fire.
Both the “Climax Kiln” and a new method of polychrome printing—whereby one transfer only is used to impart many colours to the piece of ware to be printed—have been introduced within the last six years by Mr Leonard Grimwade, perhaps the most enterprising potter of recent times. Mr Grimwade has specialized for the Colonial markets, and holds in them much the position held by Meakins in the American trade. His factories are in Hanley and Stoke, adjoining the Stoke Railway Station.
An off-shoot of the potting trade which almost amounts to an invention by itself is the manufacture of stilts, spurs and thimbles. These are the small “bits” put between the wares to prevent them sticking together when fired in the saggars, and they used to be made when and as wanted in each separate pot-works. It was Charles Ford of Hanley who, about 1840, first made a special factory for these spurs and stilts. He used metal die-stamps driven by a steam hammer which stamped out stilts by the score at a time. James Gimson followed with the invention of the “thimble.” These conical thimbles fit into and one above each other and have a lug on the rim, so that three pillar-supports are built up on which a whole “nest” of plates can rest while in the oven without touching each other. Stacked in this way, the “bits” make no marks on the face of the plate. Somewhat later Wentworth Buller, a member of the well-known Devon family, started a stilt and spur factory at Bovey Tracy in Devonshire, and, finding the cost of carriage to his market prohibitive, he moved his works about 1865 to Hanley. Here he began in 1866-7 to make telegraph insulators—a new pottery industry. He was joined shortly after by his cousin, Captain Ernest Wentworth Buller, the brother of Sir Redvers and an engineer, who became sole owner in 1869. In 1872 J. T. Harris joined the firm, which is now controlled and carried on by his son, John Harris. Having obtained a foothold in the electrical trade, this firm was naturally called on to do all the early electrical work. Just as they had stamped stilts and spurs so they stamped switches, cut-outs, “roses,” and all manner of electric fittings. In 1896 Captain Buller sold out and retired. The elaborate insulators now used are thrown by hand and then turned and screwed, and nearly half the world’s supply comes from Bullers Limited.
A somewhat similar trade was carried on by James Mackintyre and William Woodall, M.P., at Burslem, in the manufacture of furniture fittings. Door plates, door knobs, knobs and buttons of all sorts for the furniture trade are stamped in dies by the score, as are the stilts and spurs. Messrs. Mackintyre are still the chief makers of furniture pottery, though they have by no means a monopoly.
Saggars in which ware is packed for firing are also made by the direct pressure of a large die or press upon the plastic marl.