Thomas Maddock (April 1, 1818 – June 16, 1899) was an inventor and

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US * Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska * Potters, New Je ...

. He invented devices that made

plumbing fixture A plumbing fixture is an exchangeable device which can be connected to a plumbing system to deliver and drain water. Common fixtures Supply The most common plumbing fixtures are: *Bathtubs *Bidets * Channel drains *Drinking fountains * Hose bib ...

s more practical and started the American indoor toilet industry. Maddock was decorator for a set of

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

tableware dishes for President

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity ...

Early life

Maddock was born in the

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 ...

area of England on April 1, 1818. He was the third child of nine in the family. William, the first child, died at an early age. His other siblings were: three brothers, John, William B., Henry; his four younger sisters were Sarah, Betsy, Mary and Jane. Maddock's father was Thomas Maddock, Sr. His mother was Mary Maddock (née Crompton). His father was a decorator of fine china at the

Davenport Pottery Davenport Pottery was an English earthenware and porcelain manufacturer based in Longport, Staffordshire. It was in business, owned and run by the Davenport family, between 1794 and 1887, making mostly tablewares in the main types of Stafford ...

manufacturing firm as was his uncle, John Maddock Jr. Maddock worked at Davenport Pottery as a decorator while a teenager, under the supervision of his father and uncle.

Mid life

Maddock married Miss Honor Bossoms in 1844 at the age of 26. English pottery business opportunities were not available at the time so they decided to emigrate to America in 1847. Maddock started a business decorating

dinnerware Tableware is any dish or dishware used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. It includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, and other items for practical as well as decorative purposes. The quality, nature, variety and number of obj ...

in New York with William Leigh, a friend that also emigrated to America contemporaneously. Maddock with Leigh started the first American china decorating shop. The concept of firing of decorated dinnerware was then unknown in America. Maddock obtained prominence by the decoration of dinner services for President Pierce at the White House in 1853. The St. Nicholas Hotel in New York City opened in the same year and the Maddock & Leigh firm decorated dinnerware for them. Maddock joined the thirteenth regiment of the national guard of New York during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. After the war he became a sales agent in 1872 for 'Millington & Asthury,' manufacturers of

porous Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure ...

tableware in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Thomas Maddock & Sons.

Sanitary ware

Maddock believed that

sanitary ware {{Short pages monitor