John Turner, first of Stoke, and then of Lane End, father of Messrs. John and William Turner, was one of the most clever and successful potters Staffordshire ever produced, but one about whom little has been written. Many of his productions in black and in jasper, &c., are quite equal to those of Wedgwood, and, indeed, are often mistaken for the work of that great man. Mr. Turner’s cream ware, too, as well as his stone ware, of which his jugs are best known to collectors, rank high in excellence both of design and manipulation. In 1762 Mr. Turner commenced manufacturing at Lane End, and made many improvements in the art, and by the discovery of a vein of fine clay at Green Dock was enabled successfully to compete not only with other potters, but with Wedgwood himself. Mr. Turner is stated to have been deputed, with Wedgwood, by the Staffordshire potters, to oppose the extension of the patent to Champion.
Jacob Warburton, of Hot, or Holt Lane, a man highly respected by every class, and who lived until the year 1826, was born in 1740, and passed his long and useful life as a potter, in which art he rose to considerable eminence in his early years in connection with his father and brothers, and later on his own account, and, in partnership with others, in the New Hall Works. He was the “last member of the old school of potters, the early friend and contemporary of the ‘father of the Potteries,’ Josiah Wedgwood, with whom he was for many years in the habit of confidential intercourse and friendship. Numerous are the benefits which the public derived from the united exertions of the talents and abilities of these two venerated characters, on every point connected with the local interest and prosperity of the Staffordshire Potteries.” Besides being one of the most clever and energetic potters, “he was a good scholar, and a man of pure taste; he had read extensively, and his memory was tenacious in a very extraordinary degree. He was equally distinguished for his moral and convivial habits of mind, for the soundness of his intellect and the goodness of his heart. He spoke fluently the French, Dutch, and German languages, and was learning the Italian up to the very period of his death.” He retained his activity of body and mind to the last, and, though eighty-six years of age, set out the day preceding his death to walk to Cobridge. He died while a friend was reading to him. Mr. Warburton, who was a Roman Catholic, was twice married. For some years before his decease he had retired from business, and died at his residence, Ford Green, in the parish of Norton.
William Clowes, of Port Hill, was, it is said, only a sleeping partner in the concern.
Charles Bagnall, of Shelton, who had previously been with Joshua Heath, was a potter of considerable experience, in the middle of last century. He was probably a son of the potter of the same name, who was a maker of butter-pots in Burslem in 1710–15. He became one of the partners in the New Hall Works a century ago. The family has been connected with Staffordshire for many generations.
The company, being thus formed, purchased the patent right from Richard Champion, who removed into Staffordshire to superintend the establishing of the new works in that county. The first operations of the company were conducted at the works of one of the partners, Anthony Keeling, at Tunstall, the pottery formerly belonging, as just stated, to his father-in-law, Enoch Booth. Tunstall at this period was a mere small street, or rather roadway, with only a few houses—probably not more than a score—scattered about it and the lanes leading to Chatterley and Red Street. To this spot, the forerunner of the present large and important town, Cookworthy’s patent was brought, and here, with the experienced potters who had become its purchasers, and under the management of Champion, who had produced such exquisite specimens of art at Bristol, and who had been induced, as a part of the arrangement, to superintend the manufacture, the first pieces of china made in Staffordshire, with the exception of the trial pieces of Littler, were produced. To accommodate the new branch of manufacture at Keeling’s pot-works some alterations of course became necessary, and thus it was some little time before the partners had the satisfaction of seeing anything produced under the patent-right which they had purchased. Among the partners, too, some disagreements arose, which ended in John Turner and Anthony Keeling withdrawing from the concern, and about 1780 Keeling is said to have removed to London. This withdrawal and disagreement caused the remaining partners to remove their work from Keeling’s premises, and they took a house in Shelton, known as “Shelton Hall,” afterwards the “New Hall,” in contradistinction to the “Old Hall,” celebrated as being the birthplace of Elijah Fenton, the poet. At this time Shelton Hall, which had been purchased in 1773 of Alice Dalton, widow, (who had inherited it from her brother, Edward Burslem Sundell,) by Humphrey Palmer, was occupied by his son, Thomas Palmer, as a pot-works. In 1777, Humphrey Palmer, intending a second marriage with Hannah Ashwin, of Stratford-on-Avon, gave a rent-charge of £30 on the Hall and pot-works, and a life interest in the rest of the estate, as a dower to that lady, reserving the right for his son, Thomas Palmer, the potter, to get clay and marl from any part of the estate for his own use. In 1789, Humphrey Palmer and his wife being both dead, the estate passed to their infant and only child, Mary Palmer, of whose successor’s executors, after some uninteresting changes, it was, as will be seen, ultimately purchased by the china manufacturers. At this time the works had been considerably increased, and they grew gradually larger, till, in 1802, they are described as three messuages, three pot-works, one garden, fifty acres of land, thirty acres of meadow, and forty acres of pasture, &c. About the time of the withdrawal of Keeling and Turner from the partnership, and the removal of the works from Tunstall to Shelton, Richard Champion left.
Fairly settled at New Hall, the company took for their manager Mr. John Daniel, who afterwards became a partner in the concern. The firm, as at first formed at Shelton, consisted of Messrs. Hollins, Warburton, Clowes, and Bagnall, but was afterwards carried on by Hollins, Warburton, Clowes, and Daniel. A considerable quantity of china was produced under the patent, but the most extensive and profitable branch of the New Hall business was the making and vending of the glaze called “composition,” made of materials to whose use the company had the exclusive right. This “composition,” made from the ingredients given in the specification printed in my account of the Bristol works, was supplied by the New Hall firm to the potters of the neighbourhood, and even sent to other localities, to a large extent and at a highly remunerative price. The ware made at this period was precisely similar in body and glaze to that of Bristol, to which, from the fact of some of the same artists being employed, it bears also a marked resemblance in ornamentation. In 1796 the patent, which had been enjoyed successively by Cookworthy, Champion, and the Staffordshire company, for a period of twenty-eight years, expired; but the company continued to make the hard paste china, and to supply “composition” (many potters finding it more convenient still to purchase instead of making that essential) to other manufacturers. In 1810, the firm—then consisting of four partners, viz., Samuel Hollins, of Shelton, Peter Warburton (son of Jacob Warburton), of Cobridge, John Daniel, of Hanley, and William Clowes, of Port Hill—became the purchasers of the New Hall estate for the sum of £6,800. In 1813 Peter Warburton died, leaving his share in the works to his father (Jacob Warburton) and John Daniel, as trustees under his will. In 1821, John Daniel died, and two years afterwards Samuel Clowes died also. John Daniel, I presume, was a son of Ralph Daniel, to whom the potters were indebted for discovering the system of making moulds in plaster of Paris instead of in brass, as previously done. Mr. Daniel is said to have visited the potteries and porcelain manufactories in France, and brought back with him a mould of cast plaster of Paris, which he showed and introduced to the English makers. The potters, however, knew so little of the process by which the mould was produced, that they got blocks of the gypsum of Derbyshire and cut their moulds in them, until it was explained that the gypsum must be first burnt and ground, and then cast. This circumstance is so graphically described in the “Burslem Dialogue,” given by Ward, that I transcribe the few following lines for my readers’ amusement: