Staffordshire pottery and its history

by Josiah C. Wedgwood

3. Red blending clay, which is of a dirty red colour.

4. White-clay, so called, it seems though of a blewish colour, and used for making a yellow-coloured ware, because yellow is the lightest colour they make any ware of.[9]

all which they call throwing clays, because they are of a closer texture, and will work on the wheel;

“Which none of the three other clays, they call slips, will any of them doe, being of looser and more friable natures; these mixed with water they make into a consistence thinner than a syrup, so that being put into a bucket it will run out through a quill; this they call Slip, and is the substance wherewith they paint their wares; whereof the

1-sort is called the Orange slip, which before it is worked, is of a greyish colour mixt with orange balls, and gives the ware when annealed an orange colour.

2. The White slip, this before it is workt, is of a dark blewish colour, yet makes the ware yellow, which being the lightest colour they make any of, they call it (as they did the clay above) the white slip.

3. The Red slip, made of a dirty reddish clay, which gives wares a black colour.

neither of which clays or slips must have any gravel or sand in them; upon this account before it be brought to the wheel they prepare the clay by steeping it in water in a square pit, till it be of a due consistence; then they bring it to their beating board, where with a long spatula they beat it till it be well mixed; then being first made into great squarish rolls, it is brought to the wageing board, where it is slit into flat thin pieces with a wire, and the least stones or gravel pickt out of it; This being done, they wage it, i.e. knead or mould it like bread, and make it into round balls proportionable to their work, and then tis brought to the wheel, and formed as the workman sees good.

“When the potter has wrought the clay either into hollow or flat ware, they are set abroad to dry in fair weather, but by the fire in foule, turning them as they see occasion, which they call whaving: when they are dry they stouk them, i.e. put ears and handles to such vessels as require them: These also, being dry, they then slip or paint them with their several sorts of slip, according as they design their work,—when the first slip is dry, laying on the others at their leasure, the orange slip making the ground, and the white and red the paint; which two colours they break with a wire brush, much after the manner they do when they marble paper, and then cloud them with a pensil when they are pretty dry. After the vessels are painted they lead them, with that sort of lead ore they call smithum, which is the smallest ore of all, beaten into dust, finely sifted and strewed upon them; which gives them the gloss, but not the colour;[10] all the colours being chiefly given by the variety of slips, except the motley colour, which is procured by blending the lead with manganese, by the workmen called ‘magnus.’[11] But when they have a mind to show the utmost of their skill in giving their wares a fairer gloss than ordinary, they lead them then with lead calcined into powder, which they also sift fine and strew upon them as before, which not only gives them a higher gloss, but goes much further too in their work, than lead ore would have done.

“After this is done they are carried to the oven, which is ordinarily above 8 foot high, and about 6 foot wide, of a round copped forme, where they are placed one upon another from the bottom to the top: if they be ordinary wares such as cylindrical butter pots &c. that are not leaded, they are exposed to the naked fire, and so is all their flatware though it be leaded, haveing only parting-shards, i.e. thin bits of old pots put between them, to keep them from sticking together. But if they be leaded hollow-wares, they do not expose them to the naked fire, but put them in shragers, that is, in coarse metall’d pots, made of marle (not clay) of divers formes, according as their wares require, in which they put commonly three pieces of clay called Bobbs for the ware to stand on, to keep it from sticking to the shragers; as they put them in the shragers to keep them from sticking to one another (which they would certainly otherwise doe by reason of the leading) and to preserve them from the vehemence of the fire, which else would melt them downe, or at least warp them. In 24 hours an oven of pots will be burnt, then they let the fire goe out by degrees which in 10 hours more will be perfectly done, and then they draw them for sale, which is chiefly to the poor cratemen, who carry them at their backs all over the whole Countrey, to whome they reckon them by the piece, i.e. Quart, in hollow ware, so that 6 pottle, or 3 gallon bottles make a dozen, and so more or less to a dozen, as they are of greater or lesser content; The flat wares are also reckon’d by pieces and dozens, but not (as the hollow) according to their content, but their different bredths.”[12]