Castleford Pottery
The original Castleford Pottery operated from c. 1793 to 1820 in
This style was used by other potteries, in Yorkshire,
The Castleford Pottery depended largely on exports to Europe, especially the Baltic, and apparently owned its own ships. Like other English potteries, the disruption to trade from the Napoleonic Wars was a blow from which it never recovered.[3]
The works, on what is now Pottery Street, Castleford, had been a pottery under previous owners since about 1770,[4] and continued to be so after the sale by Dunderdale in 1820. It is claimed that the same premises operated as a pottery from c. 1770 until the last business, Clokie & Co, closed in 1961.[5] The "Pottery River", an ox-bow branch of the River Calder, gave easy access to barges. The sculptor Henry Moore, who came from Castleford, attended pottery painting classes in the town in the 1920s.[6]
Castleford-type
The teapots often have a straight-sided octagonal shape, imitating designs in silver. The reliefs follow the general artistic taste of the period, with mild Neoclassicism shading into Romanticism. The lids of the teapots are often either hinged, or slide out to the rear, the lid piece including a section of the "gallery" or border around the top hole in the pot.[7]
Sowter & Co of
"Basalt ware" teapots and other large teaware items are the other main type of object associated with Dunderdale's Castleford Pottery. These, also made elsewhere, are in a similar style (without enamel) and sometimes both types are found from the same moulds.
Unlike Wedgwood's Jasperware and other types, where the reliefs were made separately and applied, in Castleford-type wares the reliefs were carried in the moulds, into which the clay was pressed, with two mould for the halves of the main body, the handle being joined later.[11]
Marks
Most pieces are unmarked, but some have impressed marks on the base of "DD CASTLEFORD" until 1803, when David Dunderdale took John Plowes as a partner. Thereafter "DD & CO CASTLEFORD" or "DD & CO CASTLEFORD POTTERY" were used.[12]
Background
Although
By about the 1740s Staffordshire potters were making teapots with bolder relief designs, in particular those shaped as camels, in a creamy
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"Camel" stoneware teapot, Staffordshire, c. 1750
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Turner factory, stoneware, c. 1785, antedating the Castleford Pottery
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Early Castleford ware commemorative teapot, dated 1792,pearlware
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Castleford ware teapot, basalt ware
Notes
- ^ Wood, 14–15; Hughes, 221–222; "Blue lined 'Castleford-type' slop basin", Fitzwilliam Museum
- ^ Godden, xxiii; Fitzwilliam
- ^ Jewitt, 485–486; "Castleford potteries", Wakefield Council
- ISBN 1584655135, 9781584655138, google books
- ^ "Castleford potteries", Wakefield Council; Jewitt, 488–489, describes (without much appreciation) the wares made by "Clokie and Masterson" when he was writing in 1878. Wakefield Museum have many pieces online, especially 20th century ones.
- ^ Castleford Museum, Item B1.519
- ^ Fitzwilliam; Godden, xxiii; Wood, 14
- ^ Fitzwilliam; example covered is probably by Sowter & Co.
- ^ Wood, 14; Jewitt, 488
- ^ Jewitt, 488; Wakefield Museum, Item Cas.222
- ^ Fitzwilliam; Godden, xxiii
- ^ Hughes, 221-22; Godden, xxiii
- ^ Wood, 13–16
- ^ Godden, xiii–xiv; Wood, 3
- ^ Hughes, 75–78; Godden, xiv–xv
- ^ Hughes, 47–50; Godden, xix
- ^ Godden, xix
References
- "Fitzwilliam": "Blue lined 'Castleford-type' teapot, sliding cover", Fitzwilliam Museum
- Godden, Geoffrey, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain, 1992, Magna Books, ISBN 1 85422 333 X
- Hughes, G Bernard, The Country Life Pocket Book of China, 1965, Country Life Ltd
- Jewitt, Llewellynn F. W., The Ceramic Art of Great Britain from Pre-historic Times Dowm to the Present Day..., Vol 1, 1878, Virtue and Company, Google books
- Wood, Frank L., The World of British Stoneware: Its History, Manufacture and Wares, 2014, Troubador Publishing Ltd, ISBN 178306367X, 9781783063673
Further reading
- Cox, Alwyn & Angela, Castleford Pottery and its wares 1790–1821 : a new survey, Northern Ceramic Society Journal, 20, 2003–04, p. 11–54
- Edwards Roussel, Diana, Castleford Pottery 1790–1821, 1982, Wakefield Historical Publications