Fig. 803.
The Temple and St. Thomas’s Street Works.—The oldest stoneware pottery in Bristol is that of Mr. J. and C. Price and Brothers, in St. Thomas’s Street and Temple Street, where their famous glazed stoneware is made. It was established about 1735 or 1740, and has been continued in work by three generations of the same family until the present day. The old “Salt Glaze” was used till 1842, when great improvements having been made through the long-continued and successful experiments of Mr. Powell (as named in the notice of his works), it was at that time found practicable to dip the stoneware into liquid glaze in its green state, instead of first burning and then “smearing,” as formerly practised. Messrs. Price, having adopted the new method, continued to improve their works, and built much larger kilns than usual in potteries of the kind. The superiority of “Bristol stoneware” over others became so well established, that the metropolitan makers bought their glaze from that city until very recently, and, indeed, I believe some of them do so at the present day. The stoneware goods produced by Messrs. Price are of the highest quality, and, besides the more homely and useful articles, they have succeeded in making some excellent imitations of the antique, of very fine body, faultless glaze, and elegant form. Many of these are admirable copies from the antique, and are perfect in shape and in firing. Among the goods produced by this firm are filters of a remarkably simple but excellent construction and of elegant form; feet and carriage warmers; barrels and churns; bread, cheese, and other pans, and every other kind of domestic vessel, as well as every possible size and variety of bottles, jugs, &c. They do an immense export trade for bottles for ale, stout, &c., these being found for the purpose far superior to glass. Messrs. Price also make all the other usual varieties of stoneware goods, and all are of faultless quality both in body and glaze.
Other stoneware potters besides those already named were, in former times, John Hope,[99] in Temple Street; Thomas Patience,[100] in the same district; James Alsop, first at 9, Water Lane, and afterwards at Temple Street, and others, as well as at Baptist Mills, Easton, and Westbury.
Temple Gate Pottery.—At Temple Gate a stoneware pottery has long been established, and is still successfully carried on by Messrs. William and Septimus Powell, the sons of its founder. The goods manufactured at this establishment are what are generally termed “Bristol ware” or “Improved stone,” which was invented and perfected some forty years ago by the late Mr. Powell. “Its peculiarity consists in its being coated with a glaze which is produced simultaneously with the ware itself, so that one firing only is needed.” So great was Mr. Powell’s success in his discovery, that “shortly after its introduction at the Temple Gate Pottery almost every other manufacturer of stoneware adopted it, and it has now, in a large measure, superseded the old salt-glazed ware.” The goods principally made by the present proprietors, Messrs. W. & S. Powell, are bread-pans, filters, foot-warmers, and other domestic vessels, as well as bottles and jars of every size, shape, and use. Messrs. Powell have a registered arrangement for fitting, fastening, and keeping air-tight, by means of a three-pronged, or tripod, iron clamp furnished with an elastic washer, the lids of preserve and other jars—thus doing away with the necessity of any other covering. At these works, too, vases and bottles of classic shape are occasionally made, as are also enormous jugs—one of which, capable of holding twenty-five gallons, has been exhibited by the firm.
Wilder Street Pottery.—About 1820 a pottery on a small scale was worked in Wilder Street by a family named Macken, a descendant of the owner of the old pottery at St. Ann’s, at Brislington, where flower-pots and other coarse brown ware was made. Macken afterwards went to America.
Bristol Glass.
As the manufacture of enamelled glass in Bristol is so intimately mixed up with that of pottery and china, it may be interesting to add a few words concerning it. In 1761 there appears to have been, according to Evans, “fifteen large houses employed in that manufacture.” The main source of information concerning the manufacture is gained from the books and papers of Michael Edkins, to whom I have referred in my notice of the delft-ware pottery. For the particulars gleaned from these papers I am indebted to his descendant, Mr. William Edkins. The ledger commences in May, 1761.