North Shields Pottery was an English pottery manufacturer that created earthenware ceramics from circa 1814 to circa 1913 under a succession of owners and company names.
The company was first established at the Low Lights, North Shields, in c.1814 [1] possibly by Collingwood & Beall.
Subsequently, the business became a partnership with John Thompson, trading as "William Collingwood & Company". Although this firm was dissolved in February 1819, William Collingwood carried on alone. [2] Unfortunately, he was soon declared bankrupt [3] and by 1823 the business was owned by Nicholas Bird and trading as "Bird & Co.". [4]
In October 1826 the business was advertised for sale, under the name of "The Northumberland Earthenware Manufactory" [5] and a little later, Mr Bird was also declared bankrupt in October 1827 [6] and the business was sold at auction in January 1828. [7]
In August 1828, it was announced that the business was now owned by Messrs Robert Cornfoot & John B. Colville, and had commenced business as Cornfoot, Colville & Co., advising the public that they had engaged the services of an experienced, steady and active manager from the Staffordshire Potteries. [8]
However, in May 1831 the business was again up for sale [9] and by March 1832 "The North Shields Earthenware Manufactory" was doing business under the ownership of Cornfoot, Carr & Co., advertising to the public for home consumption or exportation, their stock of best quality goods and ornamental vases of superior quality and exquisite workmanship. [10]
Robert Cornfoot died in November 1837, [11] and in February 1838 the firm became known as "Carr and Patton" and were able, by their alliance with an eminent Staffordshire manufactory, to procure the newest models and patterns of any article of china of the best quality and fashion at manufacturers prices. [12] In July 1838, they provided the plates, etc., for a Coronation celebration dinner given by the Borough of Tynemouth, for around 900 aged North Shields seamen, each piece having a portrait of the Queen in the centre surrounded by an inscription. [13] In March 1844, an alarming fire was discovered to be raging in Carr & Patton's extensive pottery at North Shields and almost the entire stock and materials were lost. [14] By 1846, Carr and Patton were listed as the owners of both North Shields Pottery and the Phoenix Pottery in Newcastle, [15] and a thorough description of the activities and procedures of the business at North Shields was featured in the local press [16] but this partnership was dissolved on 31 December 1846 [17] and by 1850 the North Shields pottery was trading as "Carr & Co.". A few years later, in 1855, they announced the opening of a show room in Norfolk Street in the town, under the name of "John Carr & Son". [18]
Having produced brown and black wares in addition to the ordinary earthenware since the start, this was discontinued in 1856 and substituted with white, cream coloured, printed, painted and lustred (Sunderland Lustreware) varieties. These were also exported, principally to the Mediterranean ports and via Alexandria to Cairo and across the Red Sea to Bombay (Mumbai). [19]
In February 1857, the business was again put up for sale, John Carr intending to retire, [20] but on this occasion, it did not change hands. In 1861, the name changed to "John Carr & Sons" and the firm remained as such until it closed. [21] John Carr Snr. died in November 1863 [22] and the business now passed into the hands of his sons. In 1873, recruitment of pottery staff was advertised in Glasgow [23] and Staffordshire. [24] Fire was a constant hazard and two fires, in February 1881 [25] and December 1882 [26] each caused a considerable amount of damage.
In April 1884, another fire broke out in the drying house and the building was completely gutted, damage was estimated to be under £1000.00. [27] In June 1893, John Carr Jnr.,Arnold Ormston Carr and Joseph James Carr left the remaining brother, Robert Cornfoot Carr, to continue the business as a Flint Grinder and Glazed Brick manufacturer on his own, but under the same name of John Carr and Sons. [28] Later that year, the sale took place of much of the moulds [29] and machinery [30] then, in December 1893, a further fire broke out in the printing and dipping department and again the building was gutted and damage was considerable, very many pieces of ware in the final stages of preparation were lost. [31] The remaining stock of pottery was taken over by one of the employees, Mr.M.King, and sold from a large warehouse on the premises. [32]
The manufacture of pottery had actually been discontinued since June [33] and the end of pottery making in North Shields was confirmed with the sale of the remaining plant and machinery in March 1894. The company did continue in the manufacture of glazed bricks and other similar items, until around 1910.[ [34] The firm eventually closed completely and the buildings were dismantled in 1913. [35]
A lasting example of the company's white glazed bricks can be seen on the frontage of three terraces in Whitley Bay - Percy, Warkworth and Alnwick Avenues - built in 1900 on land sold by the Northumberland Estate
During renovation work on nearby Cliffords Fort, whilst re-opening some embrasures which were bricked up during the 1880s, it was discovered that they had been filled with quantities of pottery waste from the Low Lights Pottery. As much of the production was for export, particularly to India and Egypt, many of the forms and patterns found were of a type not seen on Tyneside and it is hoped that enough material will be recovered to put together a small exhibition. [36]
The importance of the pottery to the local economy can be shown by the numbers employed. In 1851, this was 65 men, 32 women, 26 boys and 22 girls. [37] In 1861 this had become 50 men, 15 women and 20 boys. [38] Ten years later, this had changed to 54 men, 28 women, 38 boys and 22 girls, [39] and in 1881, adult employment had increased to 72 men, 45 women plus 21 boys [40]
Newcastle-under-Lyme is a market town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Its 2011 census population was 75,082, covered by the borough had a population of 128,264 in 2016, up from 123,800 in the 2011 Census.
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below 1,200 °C (2,190 °F). Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ceramic glaze, which the great majority of modern domestic earthenware has. The main other important types of pottery are porcelain, bone china, and stoneware, all fired at high enough temperatures to vitrify.
Faience or faïence is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
Thomas Whieldon was a significant English potter who played a leading role in the development of Staffordshire pottery.
Josiah Spode was an English potter and the founder of the English Spode pottery works which became famous for the high quality of its wares. He is often credited with the establishment of blue underglaze transfer printing in Staffordshire in 1781–84, and with the definition and introduction in c. 1789–91 of the improved formula for bone china which thereafter remained the standard for all English wares of this kind.
Spode is an English brand of pottery and homewares produced by the company of the same name, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Spode was founded by Josiah Spode (1733–1797) in 1770, and was responsible for perfecting two extremely important techniques that were crucial to the worldwide success of the English pottery industry in the century to follow.
The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, that now make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ceramic production in the early 17th century, due to the local availability of clay, salt, lead and coal.
Salt-glaze or salt glaze pottery is pottery, usually stoneware, with a glaze of glossy, translucent and slightly orange-peel-like texture which was formed by throwing common salt into the kiln during the higher temperature part of the firing process. Sodium from the salt reacts with silica in the clay body to form a glassy coating of sodium silicate. The glaze may be colourless or may be coloured various shades of brown, blue, or purple.
Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine, in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese. It was created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glazed earthenware towards a finer, thinner, whiter body with a brilliant glassy lead glaze, which proved so ideal for domestic ware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by about 1780. It was popular until the 1840s.
Lustreware or Lusterware is a type of pottery or porcelain with a metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence. It is produced by metallic oxides in an overglaze finish, which is given a second firing at a lower temperature in a "muffle kiln", or a reduction kiln, excluding oxygen.
Sunderland lustreware is a type of lustreware pottery made, mostly in the early 19th century, in several potteries around Sunderland, England.
Maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in colours on a white background. Italian maiolica dating from the Renaissance period is the most renowned. When depicting historical and mythical scenes, these works were known as istoriato wares. By the late 15th century, multiple locations, mainly in northern and central Italy, were producing sophisticated pieces for a luxury market in Italy and beyond. In France maiolica developed as faience, in the Netherlands and England as delftware, and in Spain as talavera. In English the spelling was anglicised to majolica but the pronunciation usually preserved the vowel with an i as in kite.
Tunstall is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Hanley and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It was one of the original six towns that federated to form the city. Tunstall is the most northern, and fourth largest town of the Potteries. It is situated in the very northwest of the city borough, with its north and west boundaries being the city limit. It stands on a ridge of land between Fowlea Brook to the west and Scotia Brook to the east, surrounded by old tile making and brick making sites, some of which date back to the Middle Ages.
Liverpool porcelain is mostly of the soft-paste porcelain type and was produced between about 1754 and 1804 in various factories in Liverpool. Tin-glazed English delftware had been produced in Liverpool from at least 1710 at numerous potteries, but some then switched to making porcelain. A portion of the output was exported, mainly to North America and the Caribbean.
The Herculaneum Pottery was based in Toxteth, Liverpool, England. between 1793/94 and 1841. They made creamware and pearlware pottery as well as bone china porcelain.
Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly decorative vessels such as vases, jugs, bowls and the like which are sold singly. The term originated in the later 19th century, and is usually used only for pottery produced from that period onwards. It tends to be used for ceramics produced in factory conditions, but in relatively small quantities, using skilled workers, with at the least close supervision by a designer or some sort of artistic director. Studio pottery is a step up, supposed to be produced in even smaller quantities, with the hands-on participation of an artist-potter, who often performs all or most of the production stages. But the use of both terms can be elastic. Ceramic art is often a much wider term, covering all pottery that comes within the scope of art history, but "ceramic artist" is often used for hands-on artist potters in studio pottery.
Shelley Potteries, situated in Staffordshire, was earlier known as Wileman & Co. which had also traded as The Foley Potteries. The first Shelley to join the company was Joseph Ball Shelley in 1862 and in 1896 his son Percy Shelley became the sole proprietor, after which it remained a Shelley family business until 1966 when it was taken over by Allied English Potteries. Its china and earthenware products were many and varied although the major output was table ware. In the late Victorian period the Art Nouveau style pottery and Intarsio ranges designed by art director Frederick Alfred Rhead were extremely popular but Shelley is probably best known for its fine bone china “Art Deco” ware of the inter-war years and post-war fashionable tea ware.
Creil-Montereau faience is a faïence fine, a lead-glazed earthenware on a white body originating in the French communes of Creil, Oise and of Montereau, Seine-et-Marne, but carried forward under a unified direction since 1819. Emulating the creamware perfected by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s, and under the artistic and technical direction of native English potter entrepreneurs, the faience of Creil-Montereau introduced the industrial technique of transfer printing on pottery in France and raised it to a high state of perfection during its peak years in the 19th century.
Leeds Pottery, also known as Hartley Greens & Co., is a pottery manufacturer founded around 1756 in Hunslet, just south of Leeds, England. It is best known for its creamware, which is often called Leedsware; it was the "most important rival" in this highly popular ware of Wedgwood, who had invented the improved version used from the 1760s on. Many pieces include openwork, made either by piercing solid parts, or "basketwork", weaving thin strips of clay together. Several other types of ware were produced, mostly earthenware but with some stoneware.
Staffordshire figures are a type of popular pottery figurine made in England from the 18th century onward. Most Staffordshire figures made from 1740 to 1900 were produced by small potteries and makers' marks are generally absent. Most Victorian figures were designed to stand on a shelf or mantlepiece and are therefore only modelled and decorated where visible from the front and sides. These are known as 'flatbacks'.