A POTTED HISTORY

THE POTTERIES HELPED CHANGE THE CONTENTS OF OUR KITCHEN CUPBOARDS FOREVER, AND BROUGHT BRIGHT AND BOLD MODERNITY INTO OUR HOMES. WE RAISE OUR MUGS TO SOME OF ITS PIONEERING WOMEN

Words: SIAN MEADES-WILLIAMS

If you’ve been glued to Channel 4’s The Great Pottery Throw Down, as well as admiring the artistry and skill involved, no doubt you’ve taken note of its setting among the distinctive brick bottle kilns that now are the Gladstone Pottery Museum but were once part of the busy ceramics industry of ‘the Potteries’ in Staffordshire. The companies that made the Potteries famous and changed the contents of our kitchen cupboards in the process - have become household names: Josiah Wedgwood, Josiah Spode and Henry Doulton. But where are the women? Despite their significant numbers - they were almost half of the workforce in the early twentieth century - their contribution to the rise of the ceramics industry is often overlooked, and for them it never was an easy vocation. The…

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The Simple Things (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2024

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