A Brief History of Wedgwood China

China Lovers Heaven: The Staffordshire Potteries

by Mary Dessoie

A must for any china lover is a trip across the pond to Staffordshire area of England.

Staffordshire is the historic area where "the potteries" have reigned for over 300 years. The pottery region is located approximately 150 miles from London and is easily accessible by road, an excellent railway system and two nearby airports in Manchester and Birmingham. Manufacturers such as Spode, Royal Doulton and Wedgwood are household names for many Americans. There are also hundreds of lesser-known names associated with the pottery industry in this region of England.

Unfortunately, numerous pottery houses experienced the same demise as did so many in our country: factories were in business for a few years, or perhaps decades, and then were either bought out or dissolved.

Today, however, the potteries are still very much the main industry in the six towns that comprise the city of Stoke-on-Trent: namely, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley (City Center), Stoke, Fenton and Longton. The factories in this area coexist in harmony with a bustling tourism industry that revolves around the business of producing fine china and ceramics. Being there in person, I had the chance to witness the manufacturing process firsthand.

During my three-day stay in Staffordshire, I visited the Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Spode factories. All three offer excellent behind-the-scenes glimpses into factory life. As I walked through the factories, I saw the creation of tableware and figures from raw clay, extracted from the cold gray hills of Cornwall, to the beautiful finished products. So much of the work continues to be performed exactly as it always has been through the centuries – by hand. It is a marvel to observe the skilled craftspeople demonstrate their techniques.

The Manufacturing Process
At the Spode factory, which has been at the same site since 1770, I was thrilled to have the rare chance to witness the early production stages in the manufacturing process of a special order of 1,000 Spode butter pats. These tours move at a fast pace but as we passed by a work station with those tiny plates stacked up, I insisted on stopping for a closer look. We learned that the exclusive New Bond Street, London store Asprey, which is frequently described as the "classiest and most luxurious shop in the world," had placed the order.

Unlike some of the mainly mechanical manufacturing process of other potteries, all of the stages I observed at Spode were performed by one worker. The first step involved individual cuts with a wire of a tube of clay, which was approximately nine inches long. Next, the worker slapped each piece of clay onto a machine known as a jigger. While the machine was mechanically spinning and compressing the lump of clay into he beginning formation of a butter pat, he removed pats that had been in a rotating oven of approximately forty minutes and placed the china pieces in the biscuit state on bakery-type stacked trays. The worker was in continual motion and no time was wasted. He cut clay, three pieces on the jigger, trimmed the excess for recycling, removed pieces from the oven and inserted the butter pats in their basic form in the oven from the jigger frame mold. This worker, who handled the early stages of the china making process, told me he could produce 1,600 butter pats per day. One day he would be required to make butter pats and the next perhaps tea cups. I left the Spode factory with one unfired, nearly Asprey butter pat and memories of an unforgettable experience.

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