Verreville Pottery.—In 1777, as the name implies, the Verreville Works were built for a glass-house, by a Mr. Cookson, of Newcastle, and a Mr. Colquhoun, of Glasgow. In 1806 they were sold to the Dumbarton Glass Work Company, who immediately resold them to Mr. John Geddes, with this stipulation, that he was not to manufacture crown or bottle glass. Mr. Geddes carried on the manufacture of flint glass until 1820, when he commenced making earthenware as well as glass. In 1835 the works passed into the hands of Mr. Robert Alexander Kidston, who four years afterwards added the manufacture of china to that of glass and earthenware.
“He began,” I am told by Mr. Cochran, “by bringing skilled workmen and artists from the principal seats of china manufacture. Figures, porcelain basket work and flowers, were produced by workmen who had acquired their skill in the old and celebrated porcelain works of Derby, while Coalport and several of the most famous Staffordshire china works supplied a general staff of potters, together with gilders, and flower and landscape painters. Mr. Kidston carried on the business for several years and produced a beautiful porcelain, and upon his retiring from the business in 1846 was succeeded by the late Mr. Robert Cochran, who carried on the works with great vigour and success. In 1856 he ceased the manufacture of china, and devoted the whole of the works to the manufacture of earthenware. Mr. Cochran devoted great attention and spared no expense in promoting the introduction of labour-saving machinery. He also made great improvements in the kilns or ovens in which the earthenware is fired, by which he reduced the quantity of coal used to nearly one-half. It was applied successfully in his own works of Verreville and Britannia, but was not adopted by other manufacturers. This improvement was patented in 1852, and it is only now that the same principle, with some slight alterations, has been patented and is likely to be generally adopted by potters. Mr. Cochran died in 1869, and was succeeded in the Verreville Pottery by his son, also named Robert Cochran, by whom the works are still carried on. The goods manufactured are principally for the home trade, and consist of white, sponged, printed, and enamelled ware. No marks have ever been used except the initials of the proprietors stamped on the ware.” Verreville it is said was the first work in Scotland where china was manufactured.
Figs. 760 to 762.
Fig. 763.
Garnkirk Works.—These works were established about half a century ago by Messrs. Sprott, by whom—and later by Mr. Mark Sprott—they were carried on. They are now continued by the trustees of the late Mr. Mark Sprott (Messrs. Sprott, Gillespie, and Cameron), under the style of the “Garnkirk Fire Clay Company.” The goods produced at these works are the ordinary classes of fire-clay and terra-cotta articles, including ornamental chimney shafts and smoke-valves of good design and excellent mechanical construction; sanitary pipes and other appliances; architectural enrichments; garden edgings and balustrades of more than average beauty in design, of which examples are given in Figs. [760 to 762]; garden vases of great variety in design and of different sizes; fountains, notably an example of five tiers, supported by figures of dolphins and cranes, with basin twenty-four feet in height and sixteen feet across, erected in the public park at Aberdeen; busts, statuary, both single figures and groups, including Baily’s lovely conception of “Eve at the Fountain,” “Gleaner,” “Minerva,” “Bacchus,” “Atlas,” &c.; pedestals, brackets, and every other variety of ornamental goods, as well as fire-clay, bricks, blocks, &c. The markets principally supplied are the home, and those of France, Germany, Russia, and the East and West Indies. The mark used is simply the word Garnkirk impressed in the clay.
The Gartcosh Works were established by Mr. James Binnie, in 1863, and have since then been considerably extended. The produce of these works is terra-cotta vases, tazzas, pedestals, fountains, &c., of remarkably good design and of fine and durable quality; ornamental and plain garden edgings; gothic, clustered, and other chimney tops; ridge, flooring, and roofing tiles; cattle, horse, and dog troughs; copings; sewage and sanitary pipes of every description; glazed and unglazed fire bricks, furnace blocks, and all other goods for fire-resisting purposes. The clay is found about fifty fathoms below the surface, at Gartcosh; the strata being from eighteen to twenty-five feet in thickness. It is found underlying large beds of sandstone in what is called the limestone series, which lies between the upper and lower coal series of this district. The following is the analysis: silicic acid or silica, 60·96; alumina, 37·00; peroxide of iron, 1·16; lime, 0·64; magnesia, 0·24; total, 100.00.