Figs. 881 to 883.
Open-work baskets, tureens, &c., twig baskets, in which the “withies” were of precisely the same form as those of Leeds and Wedgwood, &c., perforated plates, dishes, tureens, spoons, ladles, and other articles, ice-pails, salt-cellars, flower-vases, cruets and stands, inkstands, seals, bird fountains, smelling-bottles, and, indeed, every variety of articles, as well as services of all descriptions, and ornamental vases of several designs, were made in these wares, and such as were adapted for the colour were made in green glazed ware. Of teapots, many patterns, with raised groups, trophies, &c., and others for loose metal “kettle-handles” are also engraved.
In the cream-coloured ware, and also in the fine white earthenware, excellent dessert and other services were made, and were painted with flowers, &c., with a truth to nature which has seldom been equalled. In my own collection are also some remarkable plates of small size of fine earthenware. In these the underside of the plate is left white, while the whole of the rest is tinted of a deep buff. The edge, and a line on the inner side of the rim, is black, and in the centre of each plate is a landscape, which has all the beauty and effect of a well-executed Indian ink drawing.
About 1810–12, china of an excellent quality was, to a very small extent indeed, made at the Don Pottery, and examples of this are of extreme rarity. In Mr. Manning’s possession is a coffee mug of excellent body, and of remarkably good soft glaze, well painted with Chinese subjects, which is marked “Don Pottery” in very small letters, pencilled in red. This interesting specimen is the only marked one which has come under my notice. Two other specimens of this very rare china ware, which are equally curious and interesting with the one just spoken of, are here engraved. One is a jug which will hold rather more than a pint, and has a curious story attached to it. The china body of which it was made was mixed by Godfrey Speight and Ward Booth, both of whom were originally from Staffordshire; the latter, it is said, was brought from that county “with a whole regiment of hands” to work at the new Don Pottery, of which he became the manager. The jug was painted by his son, Taylor Booth, who was brought up with Enoch Wood, of Burslem, and afterwards was at the old Derby China Works, and given to Speight, from whose aged son’s hands it passed into my own. It is beautifully painted with groups of flowers on either side, and a sprig of jasmine beneath the spout, and has a broad gold line round the top. The curious part of the story connected with this jug is, that in the body of which it is composed, by one of those strange and unaccountable freaks to which potters as well as other people are liable, are two of the fingers of a noted malefactor, Spencer Broughton, who was gibbeted on Attercliffe Common at the close of the last century. It appears that a party of the Don and Swinton potters, who had been to Sheffield for a carousal, and had stayed there till the small hours of the morning, were, when not sober, returning over the moor, when, on passing the gibbet on which the gaunt skeleton of the malefactor still hung, as it had for years, in chains, one of them, saying, “Let’s ha’ a rap at him,” picked up a stone and threw it, knocking off the bones of two of the fingers. These were picked up, and carefully carried home as trophies of the exploit; and some time afterwards, when trials in the manufacture of china were being made, they were brought out, calcined, and mixed with some of the body. Of this body a seal was made, “with a gibbet on it,” and the jug (Fig. [882]) just described. This story I had from the lips of one of the party of potters, a man then fast nearing “fourscore years and ten” in age. The horrible and brutal taste displayed by the potters has, it must be admitted, its use in authenticating the example, and in giving it, at all events, an approximate date.
The other example is a comport (Fig. [881]) of remarkably fine body and excellent glaze, and has a plant of the tiger-lily exquisitely painted of natural size, occupying the whole of its inside.
In fine cane-coloured ware, tea-services, jugs, &c., were made, and were ornamented with figures, borders, and other designs in relief. Of this kind of ware the accompanying engraving of a sugar-box will serve as an example. It is ornamented with figures, trophies, &c., in relief in black and is marked “Green’s Don Pottery.”
In green glazed ware flower-vases of large size, root-pots, dessert and other services; in red ware, scent jars of bold and good design, large-sized mignonette vases, and many other articles; and in “Egyptian black,” teapots, cream-ewers, jugs, &c., were made.
The “brown china” spoken of in the list of goods was the “Rockingham Ware,” which was attempted to be made at the Don Pottery, and is still made of the common marketable quality.
A considerable trade was carried on with Russia, with France and Belgium, and with South America, to which markets the greater part of the goods produced were consigned.
At the “Don Pottery” at the present day, Messrs. Barker produce all the usual varieties of the commoner classes of earthenware to a large extent; the works giving employment to between two and three hundred hands. In toilet services many excellent patterns are produced, both enamelled, gilt, and lustred. They also produce dinner, tea, dessert, and other services, as well as all the usual varieties of goods for home and foreign consumption, including in “Egyptian black,” teapots, cream-ewers, &c., Rockingham ware, and “cane,” or yellow ware.