The Fulham Pottery was founded in Fulham, London, by John Dwight in 1672, at the junction of New

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

and Burlington Road, Fulham, not far from

Putney Bridge Putney Bridge is a Grade II listed bridge over the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north. The bridge has medieval parish churches beside its abutments: St Mary's Church, Putney is built on the so ...

. Dwight is the earliest clearly documented maker of

stoneware Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. Whether vi ...

in England, although immigrant Dutch or German potters were probably active several decades before. By 1690 there was a rival stoneware operation in Fulham, run by the Dutch

Elers brothers John Philip Elers (7 September 1664 – 1738) and his brother David Elers were Dutch silversmiths who came to England in the 1680s and turned into potters. The Elers brothers were important innovators in English pottery, bringing redware or ungla ...

, who after a few years went off to become important early figures in transforming the

Staffordshire pottery The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, which is now the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ce ...

industry. In its first years it was a pioneering force in English

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

in several respects, in particular salt-glazed wares and figures. After Dwight's death in 1703 the pottery made less ambitious stonewares until a revival in the later 19th century. It operated on the same site until 1956, and then until at least the 1980s as a base for

studio pottery Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves.Emmanuel Cooper, ...

to be fired. Today, all that remains of the original pottery is one large

bottle kiln A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal Stoppe ...

, "probably 19th-century", which is now a Grade II listed building.

Wares and history

John Dwight

From the earliest days, the pottery was a significant manufacturer of

salt-glazed stoneware Salt-glaze or salt glaze pottery is pottery, usually stoneware, with a glaze of glossy, translucent and slightly orange-peel-like texture which was formed by throwing common salt into the kiln during the higher temperature part of the firing pr ...

, initially brown, and later white; often the two glaze colours were combined in different zones. Dwight was a very early experimenter with

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

, approaching the matter scientifically, keeping records of his trials. Dwight's background was not in pottery; he had a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...

degree from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, and worked as an assistant to

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...

in the later 1650s. Excavations in the 1970s uncovered many of his coded test pieces, dated to 1673–74, which the

Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (fou ...

feels able to call "porcelain", although such wares never seem to have been produced for sale. The

, which has the excavated pieces, has a small porcelain vase, deliberately broken, with painted floral decoration, and a similar unpainted one. The stoneware vessels often copied German shapes and decoration, while the porcelain shapes imitate

Chinese porcelain Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from constru ...

. In its first years the pottery produced some small sculptural pieces of good quality, which were unprecedented in English pottery. These were figures of classical gods and busts of Dwight's family and English royalty, which were evidently modelled by sculptors brought in, though scholars cannot agree which. Most of the small number of examples in the London museums were made as one-off hand-modelled pieces, rather than using moulds to allow repetition, and seem to have come from a sale after Dwight's last descendant died in 1859. The

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

has a memorial statuette of his daughter Lydia Dwight, who died aged 6 in 1674, standing in her burial clothes with a skull at her foot. This was a private image for the family of the dead girl. Another half-length figure shows the girl dead in her bed, holding a posy of flowers.

After 1703

After Dwight died in 1703, the business continued under his daughter and later other members of the family, but the range and quality of wares declined, and (at least the survivals) are mostly "tavernware": bottles, jugs, mugs and the like, many with relief decoration (hunting scenes appealed to the tavern market) and inscribed or impressed inscriptions, the latter using printer's type. A relief moulded mug shown below has a version of

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...

's print ''Midnight Modern Conversation'', a satirical drinking scene, and "a very popular subject found on mugs and jugs of this type", above the inevitable hunting scene. The stamped inscription "Richd – Turner; Three Sugar – Loaves (across the medallion);

Rickmansworth Rickmansworth () is a town in southwest Hertfordshire, England, about northwest of central London and inside the perimeter of the M25 motorway. The town is mainly to the north of the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) and ...

Herts (below)" shows it was made for Richard Turner, landlord of the "Three Sugar Loaves" inn in

Herts Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

John Doulton John Doulton (17 November 1793 – 26 May 1873) was an English businessman and manufacturer of pottery, a founder of the firm that later became known as ''Royal Doulton''. John Doulton married Jane Duneau, a widow from Bridgnorth in Shropshire, wh ...

, founder of the later Doulton & Co. (now

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 ...

) finished an apprenticeship there in 1815, as "a noted big ware thrower"; he went on to found his own firm in Lambeth and make a fortune supplying Victorian England with drain and sewage pipes. Fulham continued to produce wares, but had "nearly fallen into ruin" by 1864, when it was bought by C.J.C. Bailey, who revived it, making

architectural ceramics Architectural terracotta refers to a fired mixture of clay and water that can be used in a non-structural, semi-structural, or structural capacity on the exterior or interior of a building. Terracotta pottery, as earthenware is called when not use ...

, and also following Doulton's in making some

art pottery Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly ...

from the late 1860s. The pottery changed hands again in 1888, and was soon mainly making salt-glazed stoneware again, which continued until 1956. The pottery continued to fire pieces of

, and in the 1980s produced a number of pieces with Quentin Bell, Philip Sutton and others.''The Artist''
1987, pp. 37, 57, Artist Publishing Company Limited
Two Bell examples, lot at Bonham'sTile, c. 1981
V&A Museum
"The Fulham Pottery Ltd." was dissolved
in 1996 File:Covered Tankard, John Dwight, Fulham, c. 1685-1690 - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - DSC08692.JPG, Covered tankard, c. 1685–1690, with sprigged decoration including a double bust of

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

File:Tankard, John Dwight, Fulham, dated 1724 - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - DSC08698.JPG, Mug with hunting scene and metal rim, dated 1724, inscription includes "Drink all up and Fill itt" File:Mug (AM 1965.46-1) (cropped).jpg, Mug, c. 1730, inscribed "Richd – Turner; Three Sugar - Loaves (across the medallion);

Herts (below)" – ''see text'' File:Mug LACMA 27.1.6.jpg, Mug with metal rim, 1700±25

Notes

References

*Bergesen, Victoria, ''Bergesen's Price Guide: British Ceramics'', 1992, Barrie & Jenkins, *Elliott, Gordon, "The Elers in Staffordshire", in ''Aspects of Ceramic History: A Series of Papers Focusing on the Ceramic Artifact As Evidence of Cultural and Technical Developments'', 2006, Gordon Elliott, , 9780955769009
online
*"MoL

*Wood, Frank L., ''The World of British Stoneware: Its History, Manufacture and Wares'', 2014, Troubador Publishing Ltd, , 9781783063673
google books

External links