John Shorter Pty Ltd, commonly known as Shorters, was an Australian manufacturers’ importing agency company, best known as the

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

n agent for the British ceramics firms

Royal Doulton 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 Engl ...

and

Mintons 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, ...

.Arianne Rourke, 'Shorter, Lucie Emilie (Lulu) (1887–1989)', Australian Dictionary of Biography
Retrieved 27 May 2013. John Shorter Pty Ltd remained the Doulton agents in Australia until 1979, when Royal Doulton Australia was established. The family and business were, through two generations, major donors to the

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle Hill. Although often des ...

in Sydney.

Headquarters

Shorter House at 193–195 Clarence Street, Sydney, was completed in 1938 at a cost of £26,000. The building has a frontage of 40 feet and a depth of 83 feet and is of reinforced concrete faced in warm colored textured brick. On opening, the company occupied the basement, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. The Building was designed by Robertson, Marks, and McCreadie.

Shorter family

John Shorter was born in

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, England, in 1853 and came to Sydney in 1879 to install the Doulton display in the

Garden Palace The Garden Palace was a large, purpose-built exhibition building constructed to house the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 in Sydney, Australia. It was designed by James Barnet and constructed by John Young, at a cost of £191,800 in only ...

for the Sydney International Exhibition. He died on 30 January 1942. He married his New South Wales-born wife Emily Jane Shorter, née Butler, in 1883. She was an artist and bore Shorter seven children. Their first son, Arthur Shorter, was in born 1884 and was educated at

Newington College , motto_translation = To Faith Add Knowledge , location = Inner West and Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = A ...

(1898–1900).Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Syd, 1999) pp179 He worked for the family company and became a trustee of the

in Sydney. He died in 1957. Their first daughter,

Lulu Shorter Lucie Emile Shorter (31 July 1887 – 12 August 1989), better known as Lulu Shorter was an Australian designer best known for her product designs, including the first commercially successful Australian designs for Royal Doulton. Biography Luci ...

(born Lucie Emilie Shorter in 1887), was educated at the Wesleyan Ladies’ College and became a

china painter China painting, or porcelain painting, is the decoration of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases or statues. The body of the object may be hard-paste porcelain, developed in China in the 7th or 8th century, or soft-paste porcel ...

and designer. The

Powerhouse Museum The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Park, Sydney, Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle ...

has her work in its collection and the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

hold her designs in pen-and-ink. She died aged 102 in 1989, having never married. Their third child, Austin Shorter (born John Austin Butler Shorter in 1889), attended Newington College and served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. A slip cast, bone china Royal Doulton figurine, HN322 Digger (Australian), was modeled on him by Ernest W. Light. The standing figure is of Austin dressed in military uniform, with the rising sun insignia on his slouch hat. He looks forward, with both hands in the pockets of his breeches, and his right foot slightly forward. The figure is positioned on a dark green enamel circular base, which has the word ‘DIGGER’ incised at the front of the base. Incised on the left-hand side of the base is the word ‘LIGHT’, the word incised on the right-hand side is less illegible but is ‘HORSE’.Figure, ‘Digger’, porcelain, Ernest W. Light/Royal Doulton, Burslem, England, 1915–1938
Retrieved 2 August 2017. Austin became a director of Shorters and died in 1982. Four more daughters were born in the next eight years: Constance in 1891; Elsie in 1893; Dorothy In 1895; and Elaine in 1903.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shorter, John, Pty Ltd Companies based in Sydney 1884 establishments in Australia