XIV

LATE
STAFFORDSHIRE
WARE

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CHAPTER XIV
LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE

The School of Colour—Josiah Spode the Second (1798–1827)—Davenport (1793–1880)—Thomas Minton—Semi-porcelain—Ironstone China—The Masons—Early nineteenth-century Commemorative Ware—The revival of Stoneware—Messrs. Doulton—The twentieth-century Collector—Table of Marks—Prices.

The latest phases of earthenware are mainly concerned with the school of colourists, the chief of which was Josiah Spode the Second, who controlled the factory on the death of Josiah his father, in 1797, and took William Copeland as partner. It was this Spode who introduced into earthenware decorative patterns of Japanese colouring in which reds and yellows and dark cobalt blue predominate, following the style of the Crown-Derby Japan style. About 1800 Spode commenced the manufacture of porcelain as well as earthenware, and his richly gilded Japan patterns began to rival those of Derby. In regard to the light-blue-printed ware of a fine quality turned out by Spode, an illustration is given in the chapter on Transfer-printed Ware (p. 331). It was this second Josiah Spode who standardised the body used in English porcelain, which is to-day practically the same as Spode's formula. It may be said, roughly, to consist of the constituents of true porcelain plus a proportion of bone ash. Enoch Wood, when an apprentice with Palmer, was the first to use bone with earthenware, about 1770.

It is obvious that with these rich colours of Staffordshire porcelain side by side in the same factory, with earthenware, the latter began to assume all the decorative appearance of porcelain. A reign of colour set in. Earthenware was as lavishly decorated in colours, and as richly gilded as any of the contemporary porcelains, and in putting on these colours it lost all its old characteristic features and became an echo of porcelain.

Before leaving the Spode family, it may be mentioned that Josiah Spode the second, who died in 1827, aged seventy-three, was succeeded by his son, Josiah Spode the third, who died within two years.

William Copeland had died in 1826, and in 1833 the factory at Stoke came into the hands of W. T. Copeland, known as Alderman Copeland, as he then was, of the City of London. He became Lord Mayor of London in 1835, and in that year took Thomas Garrett into partnership. Copeland and Garrett is the name of the firm till 1847. For twenty years it was known as "W. T. Copeland, late Spode," and is now at the present day Messrs. W. T. Copeland & Sons.

The marks belonging to the firm at various dates are given at the end of this chapter. We illustrate a row of five remarkably fine earthenware vases decorated in rich colour in the Derby style, so perfectly simulating the brush work of that famous porcelain factory, that upon a hasty examination they would pass for Crown-Derby. They evidently belong to the days when Josiah Spode was turning out at Stoke more Japan patterns than were produced at Derby.

At the same time a good deal of less ornate earthenware for cottage use was being made, and specimens may frequently be met with, such as tea-sets with old-fashioned teapot and two-handled sugar-bowl made about 1825. Their homely English rural subjects are very pleasing, and show that there was still a large market in the country for simple ware without any great pretensions to foreign taste. It was the last stage of the great tradition of old English earthenware.

Davenport (1793–1880).—John Davenport, of Longport in Staffordshire, began potting in 1793. There is no doubt that he was a great potter with artistic instincts. He went to France prior to 1800, and on his return introduced a porcelain body superior to anything then produced in England. With Josiah Spode the second he claims more attention as a maker of porcelain than of earthenware. But his earthenware is highly prized by collectors. His blue-printed ware was exceptionally fine, and he followed in his plates and dishes the style of Turner and of Minton in the perforated rims. His stone china is well potted and carefully painted, and in design he was not loth to follow Mason of whom we shall speak later. Many specimens of the familiar type of jug associated with Mason's name, of octagonal shape are found in porcelain. Some collectors noticing the great similarity to Mason have been inclined to attribute these porcelain jugs to him, and doubtless, as Mason made china, many are his, but Davenport who made replicas of the Mason stoneware jugs, being a maker of porcelain too, is likely to have produced these porcelain replicas also. None of these porcelain jugs appears to be marked.

Davenport ware is strong in colour, and follows the rich designs of Spode. Some pieces of stoneware are richly gilt, and have finely painted fruit-pieces and landscapes, some probably by Steel from the Derby factory. The illustration (p. 447) of the highest flight of Mason typifies this class of landscape ware. Swansea, in common with Staffordshire, had not hesitated in painting earthenware with landscape subjects hitherto employed only by artists who decorated porcelain.

The Davenport marks are given at the end of this chapter, and are always prized when found on specimens, as Davenport did not mark his ware so freely as did Spode. From 1835 the firm became "William Davenport & Co.," and later "Davenport & Co.," and ceased about 1880.

Semi-porcelain.—This is found as a term in some of the marks of the early-Victorian period; sometimes the title "opaque china" appears. These descriptions are always puzzling to the collector. As a matter of fact they tell of the later and more modern development of earthenware. It had snatched the china glaze, it had employed the enamel colours, and had adopted the designs of the English porcelain factories. The rivalry of the Staffordshire potters and the English porcelain factories was coming to an end. This stage of semi-porcelain and semi-china represented the last word of earthenware. It now simulated porcelain in its body, with one drawback, it was not translucent as is porcelain. It was naïvely termed "opaque china." But the potters were proud of their latest achievement, and accordingly marked their wares with the above terms. As has been shown, Swansea came to the front, and Haynes in the closing years of the eighteenth century produced a hard, white earthenware termed "opaque-china," and Riley's "semi-china" about 1800 was the Staffordshire equivalent.

But, as we have seen, the Staffordshire potters not only imitated porcelain, continuing a long trade rivalry extending over nearly a century, but many of them had commenced to make porcelain themselves. Even the firm of Wedgwood succumbed to the temptation, and made porcelain from 1805 till 1815, which manufacture was revived again in 1878.

Thomas Minton (1765–1836).—Minton was one of Spode's engravers, and commenced as a master potter at Stoke in 1793.

Minton had been apprenticed to Thomas Turner, of Caughley, as an engraver, and it was he who designed the celebrated "Broseley dragon" pattern on the Caughley porcelain, and it is held by some authorities that Minton engraved the "willow pattern" too. At first, at Stoke, he made only earthenware, and his blue and white ware in imitation of the Nankin porcelain won him distinction. About 1800 porcelain was made and was continued throughout the nineteenth century. His son, Herbert Minton in 1836, took into partnership John Boyle, who joined the Wedgwoods in 1842. Herbert Minton raised the quality of the productions, being one of the greatest of the Staffordshire modern potters.

In the latter half of the century Mintons obtained a world-wide reputation. From 1850 to 1870 a band of French modellers and painters executed some fine work, but this trespasses on the field of porcelain.

Among the earthenware of Minton some of the early pieces such as plates and dishes enamelled in colours with Chinese subjects, are marked with the letter M in blue and a number. Some of the earliest-known examples in earthenware of the celebrated "willow pattern," such as plates with perforated edges (similar to that illustrated, p. 331) and baskets, are by Thomas Minton.

Ironstone China.—This again is a term used by Mason and others in regard to an earthenware body for which the firm of Mason, of Lane Delph, took out a patent in 1813. It is a ware, heavy in weight, and possessing great strength. In pieces of important size, such as punch bowls of huge proportions, and posts for old-fashioned bedsteads this was of no little value. We have already alluded to the Mason series of octagonal-shaped jugs of pleasing shape, undoubtedly following the Spode scheme of colour in Japanese style, but lacking the finer finish of Spode ware. Although undoubtedly original in design, these jugs were easily excelled in potting and colouring by copyists such as Davenport. But Mason's blue in his imitations of old Nankin ware is exceptionally fine. There are dinner-services consisting of a great number of pieces painted in under-glaze blue which are very rich in tone, and stand comparison with any of the blues of Staffordshire, not excepting those of Adams and Minton.

We illustrate a large vase obviously a replica of a Chinese model, and enamelled in very rich colours. It shows a remarkable facility in potting, and although strongly coloured conveys without caricature the decorative qualities of the Chinese potter.

The vase is two feet in height. The ground is grass green. The panels have painted landscapes in Imari colours. The base and the top are a rich blue heavily gilded, and the dragon handles are a salmon pink. Obviously this, although imitative, is a very ambitious piece.

The mark of this vase stamped on the bottom (illustrated p. 451) is interesting. An outline design represents the pottery works. It is marked "Fenton Stone Works C. J. M. & Co." and in the outer rim is the inscription "Granite china," "Staffordshire Potteries."

The initials C. J. M. stand for Charles James Mason, who together with G. Miles Mason applied for the ironstone china patent in 1813.

Among other ware, similar to the early cream ware is a body termed "Mason's Cambrian-Argil." This evidently is in direct rivalry to the Swansea cream ware marked "Cambrian." Earlier jugs by him are rarely marked, and are not of the octagonal form, though the sides are prismatic, and usually seven in number. They are of a buff-coloured, soft, and chalky body, but the decorations are obviously his in similar style to his series of stoneware jugs. The handle of this earlier form is not of the snake or lizard form, but follows in design the metal handle of teapots of the period.

That the Masons could and did produce earthenware of a very high, artistic quality is shown by the illustration (p. 447) of three pieces marked with the impressed mark running in one line across the back of the examples "Mason's Patent Ironstone China." The gilding in the floral design in the borders is well done, and the landscapes in the centre are finely painted. They are in the brush work patiently stippled with as much minuteness as the work of Birket Foster. A dessert service of which this forms portion, is a very desirable acquisition, and represents stone china at its high-water mark.

The various marks used by the Masons are given at the end of this chapter. In 1851 the pottery was purchased by Francis Morley, and it was incorporated with Ridgway, Morley, Wear & Co., and at a later date passed into the hands of Messrs. C. E. Ashworth and Taylor Ashworth, who to this day revert to the original patterns of the Mason jugs which have become so deservedly popular. Most of these old patterns are being produced, although of course they have not the charm for the collector whose interest ends with the original period under Mason.

"Stone china" became a term used by many other potters who produced strong and durable earthenware, heavy in weight, and extremely suitable for domestic use. Mintons had a series of patterns in this ware decorated in Oriental style in colour. The most popular of these is one termed "Amherst, Japan," following the old anglicised versions of Japanese Imari designs and colours. This was at the date when Lord Amherst was in the public eyes. It will be remembered that he headed an embassy to China, and was requested to perform the ko-tou, or act of prostration, nine times repeated with the head touching the ground. Sir George Staunton and other members of the Canton Mission protested, and the mission was admitted to the Emperor's presence on their own terms, which consisted of kneeling upon a single knee. Lord Amherst was later appointed Governor-General of India. There are a great many potters whose names are found on earthenware of mid-Victorian days. They cannot be said to exhibit much originality in design, and their value as collectors' specimens is infinitesimal.

We illustrate two finely-potted stoneware plates, by Messrs. C. Meigh and Sons, made about 1850. They are printed in blue with designs of English primroses twined with peacock feathers! Here is East and West in strange combination. Fortunately the plates are not in colours or the result might have been disastrous; as it is they are very pleasing for the blue is of a very excellent tone. There is nothing hasty about the potting; the finish and the minor details suggest work of the old days long gone. It is evident that in the treatment of the design the inspiration came from the Japanese potter whose influence was beginning to make itself felt in pictorial art even so far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Whistler's peacocks and the dawn of the later æstheticism were at hand.

Nineteenth Century Commemorative Ware.—It has been previously shown how fond the potters became of recording events and creating figures of popular heroes in earthenware. The story is continued in the nineteenth century, which covers, one is apt to forget, the last twenty years of the reign of George III., includes the ten years of George the Fourth's reign, and the seven of William IV., commencing the Victorian Era in 1837 on the accession of the late Queen.

So that the term early nineteenth century is not the same as early Victorian; as a matter of fact a good deal of very good porcelain and earthenware comes well within the nineteenth century, but very few examples that appeal to the artistic collector belong to the early-Victorian period.

The nineteenth century as a whole was crowded with incident, and in the class of earthenware with which we are now dealing the record is a full one. From Nelson to Garibaldi; from Maria Martin the victim of the Red Barn murder to Moody and Sankey, the American revivalists; from Napoleon crossing the Alps to George III., as the King of Brobdingnag, looking at Napoleon through a telescope; from Burns's Souter Johnny to Dickens's Sam Weller; from punch bowls, inscribed "Rum and Water" and "Health to all," to figures of Father Mathew, the temperance reformer—all sub-heads are touched, and although the artistic may be absent the human touch is ever present.

There are jugs and mugs with a portrait of "Orator Hunt," with inscriptions "Universal Suffrage," "No Corn Laws," dating from 1818. A lustre mug has a print with a dragoon represented as riding over a woman, and has the legend, "Murdered on the plains of Peterloo, near Manchester, 16th August, 1819." The woman carries a flag inscribed, "Liberty or Death."

A puzzle jug of Staffordshire earthenware is inscribed, "Hatfield shot at George III., 1800. God save the King." The trial of Queen Caroline produced a crowd of figures and mugs and plates with portraits and verses. The Crimean War had its ceramic record. There is a Newcastle earthenware butter-dish printed and coloured, with an English soldier greeting a French soldier, and motto, "May they ever be united."

The transfer-printed jugs and mugs with nautical subjects we have already alluded to in a previous chapter. The unfamiliar uniform of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century "Jack Tar" is a study in costume. This silent ceramic world of old three deckers and ships of the line and barques and brigantines is all that is left of a fleet of ships which have long since sailed their last voyage—an armada of non-existent craft as ghostly as the phantom ship of Vanderdecken.

Nelson jugs are of many types; we illustrate two varieties (p. 459). Some of them are as early as 1797, and others as late as 1820.

The top jug illustrated is of Staffordshire cream ware, and is in date after Trafalgar (1805), made to commemorate this victory. The portrait of Nelson has an inscription over it, "England Expects every Man to do his Duty." On the reverse is a plan of the Battle of Trafalgar with the disposition of the ships and a slight description which ends in the sentence "in which Action the Intrepid Nelson fell covered with Glory and Renown."

The lower jug is of the same period and the portrait of Nelson is more authentic. It is transfer-printed, the uniform being slightly touched in colour. On the reverse there is a female figure and two children, and the sad human touch in the inscription, "Behold the Widow casting herself and Orphans on benevolent Britons." This is, indeed, the reverse of the medal. The glory of war is exalted unduly. But the awful reality does not always come home so pointedly as in this homely jug, which in its way records the "simple annals of the poor." We are reminded of the lines of that forgotten poet, Amelia Opie, and of the wood-engraving by Dalziel in Willmott's "Poets of the Nineteenth Century," published in the sixties. "The Orphan Boy's Tale," who tells how pleased he was—

The shouts of the crowd rejoicing drowned the widow's tears. In simple, but none the less poetical, language the child continues:

It is undoubtedly such human touches as these on the domestic crude ware which stir the heart's blood quicker than all the gods and goddesses ever turned out in Staffordshire.

The age of steam and steel and its inventions did not come unheralded. We illustrate a plate of one of the earliest steam carriages (p. 463). The plate is of Staffordshire origin and evidently was intended to be sold in Germany as a "present from London," as the inscription runs, "Dampf Wagen von London nach Bristol. Ein Geschenk für meinen Lieben Jungen" ("Steam Coach from London to Bristol. A Present for my dear boy"). In date this is about 1827 as the accompanying engraving, entitled the "New Steam Carriage," is from a periodical publication of that date.

Equally interesting is the Staffordshire blue-printed Jug marked at back "Liverpool and Manchester Railway" showing the famous Rocket steam-engine invented by George Stephenson. The date of this is 1830. A fine Cyder Mug printed in black with touches of colour shows an early passenger train. The luggage, as will be seen, is on the roofs of the carriages. The aristocratic company at the rear are seated in their own carriage, the ladies of the party are noticeable by their old-fashioned poke bonnets. There is something very interesting in these old railway mugs and jugs. They are modern, that is in regard to technique and artistic beauty, but the subjects are of sufficient interest to make the ware important enough to find a treasured place of honour in the collector's cabinet.

Lambeth Stoneware.—Mention should be made of the revival of artistic stoneware at Lambeth about 1850 by Henry Doulton, of the Lambeth pottery. An attempt was made to make vessels for ordinary use as ornamental in character as the old Flemish stoneware. Some of the early pieces are in brown stoneware with incised decoration filled with blue-glaze. Tankards and vases and jugs were made of very pleasing character. Under Sir Henry Doulton great advances were made, and mugs with hunting subjects and many grotesque brandy bottles of stoneware were made. Light brown stoneware flasks modelled to represent Lord Brougham, and impressed "The True Spirit of Reform," and "Brougham's Reform Cordial," are often of Lambeth origin. In date these are about 1830, other factories made similar ware, including the Derbyshire potteries.

Of the Doulton and Watts period which commenced 1815, from 1815 to 1832 some fine Napoleonic stoneware was turned out. There is, in particular, a small stoneware, brown jar of Napoleon made about 1825, which is finely modelled and an excellent portrait. In the Reform days of the early thirties they produced, to supply a public demand, many spirit jars with more or less grotesque models of Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, William Cobbett, and Lord John Russell. In the museum at Messrs. Doulton's at Lambeth are some fine examples of the early period.

We illustrate a strongly modelled jug with Bacchanalian subject in high relief (p. 471), showing the excellence of some of this early work at its best.

The Twentieth Century Collector.—The story of the triumphs and sometimes of the decadence of English pottery cannot be ended without a passing reference to the wondrous ware being produced at the end of the nineteenth century and now. It should appeal to-day to the prescient collector. It will appeal to the collector fifty years hence.

Under the name of the Lancastrian Pottery Messrs. Pilkington, at Clifton Junction, near Manchester, have during the past few years produced some of the most beautiful ware ever seen in this country. At the exhibition of this ware in London in 1904 they astonished all experts. The indescribable variety of exquisite colours, ranging from faint pink and sky blue to the richest purple and dark green and amber, showed at once that modern scientific methods and painstaking research had rediscovered the lost glazes of the old Chinese potters.

The starry crystalline glazes so well known in the Copenhagen porcelain have been faithfully reproduced, recalling the patterns traced on the window-pane by frost—sometimes brilliantly coloured blue or green against a background of pale lavender blue, at other times having a sheen like bronze. Other crystalline glazes are the Sunstone in which brilliant prismatic and golden crystals are disseminated through rich green yellow or olive brown glazes. The fiery crystalline glazes display brilliant red crystalline formation through purple and grey glaze in dazzling patches.

Opalescent clouded, or curdled, or veined, or serpentine glazes have countless variations of colours—copper-green, turquoise-blue, or deep lapis-lazuli broken with white curds, or opalescent veinings, or fine lines of variegated colour shot through the glaze from top to bottom—this alone suggests a dream of colour schemes, and the wise collector will realise without further ado that we are in a period of great ceramic triumphs in pottery of this nature.

Texture glazes of chicken-skin, fruit-skin, and orange-skin are highly prized, and vellum or egg-shell glazes splashed and marked like Nature's own handiwork in the most beautiful birds' eggs. Or there are metallic effects of peculiar beauty and golden lacquer glazes resembling the old gold lac-work of Chinese and Japanese artists so cunningly imitated by Martin, the French cabinet-maker, in his Vernis-Martin, so beloved of collectors of furniture and fans.

Of purple glazes of the transmutation class some of the richest effects have been obtained in colour and in splashed effects. Wine purple, mulberry, and other alluring tones have burst upon an astonished circle of connoisseurs. Of the flambé specimens it is not too much to say that their like, for which the Chinese potters were so famous, have never been seen before in Europe.

The Havilands of Limoges, Copenhagen, and Sèvres, and Berlin potters, as well as the artists in the Rookwood Pottery in America, have worked in the same field; but it is pleasant to think that English potters have produced greater variety, including Lancastrian lustre ware of wealth of glowing colour not surpassed by the Hispano-Moresque potters nor by the lustrous majolica of the Italian renaissance. To the scientific activity in wresting from the past the lost secrets of the old Chinese potters, a great tribute of praise should be accorded to Mr. William Burton and his brother, Mr. Joseph Burton.

Other workers in the same field of glazes are Mr. Bernard Moore, of London, whose glorious flambé, rich red, and sang-de-bœuf glazes are of unsurpassed beauty. Mr. William de Morgan has for many years been known for his lustrous tiles and work of fine originality and strength. Another pottery known as the Ruskin Pottery conducted by Mr. W. Howson Taylor at West Smethwick, Birmingham, is a bright spot in recent ceramic enterprise, and has won distinction for ware which is of great beauty.

In bringing the story of English earthenware to a conclusion, it is the hope of the writer that the ground has been sufficiently covered to provide an outline history of a complex subject. It may be that much appears that might have been omitted, and that much is omitted that might have appeared within these covers. But it must be allowed that personal tastes play an important part in selection either by the collector or by the student. But in matters of fact and in the mass of details relative to the potters and their wares no pains have been spared to make this little handbook worthy of its subject.

MARKS FOUND ON LATE STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE.

The first half of the nineteenth century in earthenware included a variety of types: (1) the last output of the classical school; (2) cream ware transfer-printing in under-glaze blue; (3) the school of colourists in imitation of English porcelain.

In the following list a great many names appear of potters not well known nor worthy of more than passing allusion. But their trade marks often puzzle collectors.

PRICES.

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