Stoke-on-Trent is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of 36 square miles (93 km2). In 2022, the city had an estimated population of 259,965. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surrounded by the towns of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Alsager, Kidsgrove and Biddulph, which form a conurbation around the city.
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.
The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, which is now 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.
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.
Longton is one of the six towns which amalgamated to form the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910, along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Burslem and Stoke-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, England.
Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of English pottery. From the start, the backbone of the business was a wide range of utilitarian wares, mostly stonewares, including storage jars, tankards and the like, and later extending to drain pipes, lavatories, water filters, electrical porcelain and other technical ceramics. From 1853 to 1901, its wares were marked Doulton & Co., then from 1901, when a royal warrant was given, Royal Doulton.
Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era", an independent business from 1793 to 1968. It was a leader in ceramic design, working in a number of different ceramic bodies, decorative techniques, and "a glorious pot-pourri of styles - Rococo shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and Art Nouveau borders were among the many wonderful concoctions". As well as pottery vessels and sculptures, the firm was a leading manufacturer of tiles and other architectural ceramics, producing work for both the Houses of Parliament and United States Capitol.
The Sentinel is a daily regional newspaper circulating in the North Staffordshire and South Cheshire areas of England. It is owned by Reach plc and based at Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.
Fielding majolica is pottery made at the Railway Pottery in Stoke on Trent under the proprietorship of Simon Fielding (1827–1906) and Abraham Fielding. Victorian majolica is a generic name given to the brightly coloured lead-glazed earthenware that was originally developed by Mintons for the Great Exhibition of 1851.
William Duesbury (1725–1786) was an English enameller, in the sense of a painter of porcelain, who became an important porcelain entrepreneur, founder of the Royal Crown Derby and owner of porcelain factories at Bow, Chelsea, Derby and Longton Hall.
Victorian majolica properly refers to two types of majolica made in the second half of the 19th century in Europe and America.
Edwin Bennett, born in Newhall, Derbyshire, was an English American pioneer of the pottery industry and art in the United States, and founder of the Edwin Bennett Pottery Company of Baltimore, Maryland. Producing a variety of wares from the everyday to the fine and artistic, his company, originally founded in the 1840s as the Edwin Bennett Queensware Manufactory, continued in operation until forced to close during the Great Depression in 1936. Examples of Edwin Bennett pottery may be found in museums across the United States, including the Maryland Historical Society, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Museum of American History, as well as in private collections.
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.
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.
Percy Shelley (1860–1937) was an English potter and a major force in developing Shelley Potteries. He was born in Longton, Staffordshire. He attended Owen's College, Manchester and then London University, where he gained a B.A. degree.
W H Grindley was an English pottery company that made earthenware and ironstone tableware, including flow blue. The company was founded in 1880 by William Harry Grindley, JP of Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent.
Ironstone china, ironstone ware or most commonly just ironstone, is a type of vitreous pottery first made in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century. It is often classed as earthenware although in appearance and properties it is similar to fine stoneware. It was developed in the 19th century by potters in Staffordshire, England, as a cheaper, mass-produced alternative for porcelain.
The Frog Service or Green Frog Service is a large dinner and dessert service made by the English pottery company Wedgwood for Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, and completed in 1774. The service had fifty settings, and 944 pieces were ordered, 680 for the dinner service and 264 for the dessert. At Catherine's request the hand-painted decoration showed British scenes, copied from prints, with a total of 1,222 views. In addition each piece had a green frog within a shield, a reference to the name of the palace it was intended for.
The original Castleford Pottery operated from c. 1793 to 1820 in Castleford in Yorkshire, England. It was owned by David Dunderdale, and is especially known for making "a smear-glazed, finely moulded, white stoneware". This included feldspar, giving it a degree of opacity unusual in a stoneware. The designs typically included relief elements, and edges of the main shape and the panels into which the body was divided were often highlighted with blue overglaze enamel. Most pieces were teapots or accompanying milk jugs, sugar bowls and slop bowls, and the shapes often derived from those used in contemporary silversmithing.
William Ault was an English potter, involved with a number of companies in the Staffordshire potteries and South Derbyshire making art pottery and more utilitarian wares.
