/ Jpt cnn^ H CENT fjf JL AS A KERAMIC STUDY A Chapter in the History of Half a Dozen Dinner Plates BY FLORA E. HAINES “All that inhabit this great earth, Whatever be their rank or worth, Are kindred and allied by birth, And made of the same clay.” Published by the Author Bangor, Maine, U. S. A. 189.3 Co/OS fJK H0S7 S 7 H 3 /W Copyright, 1895, by Flora E. Haines All rights reserved THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY TO MY BROTHER CHARLES L. HINCKLEY WHOSE UNSELFISHNESS AND UNFAILING SYMPATHY IN EVERY UNDERTAKING ARE SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL TO REMEMBER. F. E. H, CONTENTS I. rage IN A TRAM-CAR . . . . . 9 II. A PEEP WITHIN A POTTERY . 17 III. A KIND OFFER 24 IV. STONES AND CLAYS BECOME DOUGH 31 y. IN THE PRESSER’S ROOM . . 38 VI. WITH THE PLACERS AND OYEN- MEN 44 vn. SAGGAR-MAKING .... 54 VIII. IN THE DRAWING-WAREHOUSE . 58 IX. IN THE OYEN 62 X. PRINTING THE PLATES . . .67 .XI. THE HARDENING-KILN . . .71 XII. GLAZING AND THE GLAZE . . 74 XIII. THE SECOND FIRING . . . 78 XIV. IN THE SORTING AND POLISHING- ROOMS 84 XV, WITH THE DECORATOR ... 87 XVI. THE ENAMEL-KILN . . . .92 XVII. BURNISHING 95 XVIII. THE SIX IN HAND .... 99 XIX. FORMATION OF THE GUILD . .104 XX. CONCLUSION Ill APPENDIX 117 A Keramic Study, i. IN A TRAM-CAR. I own six white earthenware plates which I value greatly. I am going to tell you how I came to have them, what they are made of, how they were made, and something about those who made them. Before I left this country for a twelvemonth in old England I planned to visit the Stafford- shire potteries. In the pursu- ance of this plan I went, on the afternoon of March 6, 1893, to Stoke-upon-Trent, the Capi- 10 tal of the Potteries, from Birm- ingham where I had spent some weeks with Miss K. — , whose friendship I had gained on the steamship Lake Ontario. The one potter, who, np to this time, had aroused my most lively interest and engaged my greatest attention, was Josiah Wedgwood. He achieved such remarkable success in his calling, over a hundred years ago, that to him, more than to any other man, is due the controlling in- fluence of English potteries in the markets of the world. Immediately I had secured a comfortable home, I would nat- urally visit the town where he began his life-work, and the In- 11 stitute there erected to his memory in which are preserved many beautiful examples of his handiwork; so on the morning of the succeeding day I entered the tram-car for Burslem six miles from Stoke. We had covered but a short distance when I saw a large assemblage of those queer-looking ovens that Charles Dickens happily likened to “the bowls of gigan- tic tobacco-pipes cut short off from the stems and turned upside down.” “Excuse me, whose pottery is that, please V I asked of my left-hand neighbor. “ Brown -Westhead, Moore & Co.’s” was the reply. 12 “O! they are the manufactur- ers of the cactus and hop pat- terns, are’nt they?” The man did not seem to know anything about cacti or hops in such an ornamental way ; yet I was certain that Moore was the name associated in my memory with this ware which I had first seen in a Liv- erpool shop. It had interested me because it seemed odd for an English firm to have adopted the peculiarly Ameri- can cactus to such an extent. But, truly, I should not be sur- prised at meeting in England tributes in any shape to the hop, or to Gambrinus, or to Bacchus : I saw daily so many of their 13 devotees. I explained to him that I was a stranger, making a little study of the district. Upon this a gentleman oppo- site turned his smiling counte- nance upon me and remarked that the ware referred to was made in another town by Moore Bros. I told him where I was going, and he advised me if I cared to see the largest piece of porcelain in the potteries to go to Brownfield’s, at Cobridge. A few moments later he said : “I am going to Brownfield’s and if you wish to see the vase I will show it you now. I shall not detain you more than fifteen minutes.” Thanking him, and murmuring something like, “It 14 is my custom to embrace my op- portunities,” I fearlessly fol- lowed him out of the car through the arched brick gate- way I have since come to know so well, and up a flight of stairs to the show-room where stands this masterpiece of the potters art, designed by A. Carrier, a French artist of note, and made at this factory for the Paris Ex- hibition of 1889. It is esti- mated to have cost £4000, ($20,000) and is three metres thirty centimetres (about eleven feet) in height. The body of the vase is a globe of that sea-green china called celadon, two metres (about six feet eight inches) in diameter, representing “the 15 earth” with lines of latitude and longitude, and faintly outlined continents ; this is encircled with a zone of white porcelain, bear- ing four plaques, illustrating vintage, harvest, etc., in white on a black ground, and alterna- ting with large, finely modelled, sitting figures in Parian porce- lain, representing the Seasons. Ceres surmounts the globe and her attendant cherubs are show- ering down fruits upon it. The plinth is formed of sixty Parian figures, engaged in hunting, fishing, wine-pressing, reaping, etc. The base is of celadon china with white ornamentation, and shields for the coat of arms, or monogram, of the buyer. 16 However, by the accidental falling of heavy machinery upon it the vase was cracked, and in- stead of becoming a source of wonder and delight to the wives and retainers of the Shah of Persia, its would-have-been pur- chaser, it was brought back to England and has become an important factor of this chroni- cle. II. A PEEP WITHIN A POTTERY. After having duly inspected this vase, I had a glance about the room at specimens of the Company’s manufacture. I mentioned the fact of my being an American. “Are you] I have just been showing samples to an Ameri- can,” and my friend opened his hand-bag and took out five earthenware plates. The trade-mark on the back of these appealed most strongly to my democratic soul : two hemispheres, and between them arises the royal stem of the an- nunciation lily, clasped about by 18 two outstretched hands. A band around the world bears the words : “Brownfields Guild- Pottery,” and below is the word “England.” I presented my one letter of introduction. After its perusal the gentleman excused himself saying, “I will send up Mr. Brownfield, he will like to see you.” When I looked up from the piece of china, I was apparently studying, to meet the eyes of the advancing head of the es- tablishment, I was surprised to see so young a man. I may tell you that he is the most like an American in speech, man- ners and spirit of any English- 19 man whom I have met, and, do you know? that means a great deal. O, the sun never shone on such adorable men as ours ! After I had been told some- thing about the inception of the Guild, that member of the so- ciety who has the oversight of the china department was in- troduced to me, with the request to “please show this lady about and then bring her back to me.” Some time had elapsed before I was taken to the private office where I again met my friend of the street-car. There are no luxuriant or ex- travagant fixtures here. A cheerful fire of soft coal was burning in the open grate. A 20 desk, made, very likely, by the same carpenter who put up the door and window-casings, years ago, is fitted against the wall, beneath the windows, adown the whole length of the room. I noticed upon it signs of a hur- ried lunch : a china toast-rack holding slices of toasted bread, and a sugar-bowl filled with square lumps of white sugar. The companion tea-pot must have been near by, for this phil- anthropic master-potter is very fond of “the cup that cheers.” Some pieces of porcelain for the Austrian market were also on the desk and I now know that a type-writer of American birth finds lodgment there. 21 I was given a little book : “A Potter’s Guild by A. Brown- field,” and some reprints from local newspapers that I might learn still more of this co-oper- ative experiment. I was interested to know if the society’s goods are known in Yankee-land. Yes; they had sold to Portland, Maine, firms, and a Massachusetts cus- tomer, “who is more lavish with his money than most Ameri- cans,” had with a sentiment due to our Puritan ancestors, sent photographs for special plates. Some one was asked to “bring one of those Mayflower muffins” (a breakfast plate). Failing to find one, the messenger brought 22 the engraven copperplate. I suggested that a border of the leaves and blossoms only would he pretty, leaving out the statue of Faith in the center, the ves- sel, island and rock, and should sell with us, since the Epigaea repens is a truly American plant, indeed almost a New Englander. “We’ll try it !” said the chief- worker, “We’ll put it on a P. G. plate.” Taking leave, I was invited to come again and finish my round of the works. The chief-worker and my friend of the morning accompanied me to the gate, and the latter walked with me along my way until the car overtook us, and with 23 “you’ll come again in a few days'?” bade me good afternoon. III. A KDsD OFFER. Four or five full, busy, sunny days slipped by before I pre- sented myself at the door of one of the rooms devoted to the decoration of earthenware, over which department my friend holds sway. He received me kindly and begged me to excuse him if he asked how long I purposed remaining in the dis- trict? His reason for asking was that if I would stay long enough I should have half a dozen earthenware plates made for me, and I should watch their evolution. What a charming 25 proposition ! and what could have been more to my mind ? I accepted the favor with de- light. It was decided that I should begin my observations on the 14th of March, and on that morn- ing when I alighted from the car there was Mr. Turner without the gate to meet me. I was conducted to a part of “the bank” new to me and de- livered up to the manager of the earthenware manufacturing. We went into a yard where I saw a large pile of blue ball- clay from the great tertiary beds of Dorsetshire. It had come by vessel around Corn- wall to Runcorn on the Mersey, 26 thence forty-three miles by ca- nal-boats to its destination. This clay is an important constituent of my plates, and its chemical components when dried at a tem- perature of 100 ° C. are : “sili- ca, 46.28 ; alumina, 38.04 ; pro- toxide of iron, 1.04 ; lime, 1.20 ; a trace of magnesia ; water, 13.44.” A sample block is before me. It is of a grayish-white color, but it burns perfectly white. It adheres to my tongue and rubs off upon my fingers, giving them a smooth, greasy look and feel. Another constituent of the plates is china clay. This is piled in the yard and is from 27 Devonshire whence it comes very fine and white. It rubs off from my sample cake in a soft powder. There is on my table a small, flint nodule, bluish-gray out- side and brownish within. Once upon a time it was embedded in the chalk downs of southeast England, or the opposite coast of France ; but since then it has rolled about a good deal on the beach and has come by vessel away to Runcorn and then, as the others, to Staffordshire by canal-boat. Boulders like this, when calcined and ground into a fine, white, gritty powder, make the third constituent of the plates. A crumbling cake 28 of this prepared flint is before me. The fourth and last constit- uent of the body is a decom- posing, granitic stone, composed principally of feldspar and quartz. The feldspar and mica are very white from the action of mother earth’s chemical forces for ages. This has come from the Isle of Jersey and has made its last stage by canal. A piece of this disintegrating stone, and a small block of it after haying been ground, are before me. The latter falls into a white and gritty powder too, but of a different shade from the flint, which is a bluish white. 4 -The composition of 29 this rock varies considerably, so that it requires constant experi- ments to determine in what proportion the quartz and the more fusible parts stand to each other,” and that is why I have a sample block of shining white stone marked “5, trial of stone, fired.” I said the blue ball-clay and the china clay were piled in the yard just as they came from their homes ; but the granitic stone and the flint nodules were carried from the canal-boats to the Company’s mill where they were ground, the flint having first been calcined in a furnace, and then pulverized under water, since the fine flint powder is very 30 harmful to the workmen. These two constituents are brought in barrels to our pottery, having been mixed at the mill with pure cold water to the consist- ency of cream. IV. STONES AND CLAYS BECOME DOUGH. In a building opening into the yard are four large covered receptacles called blungers ; into one of them is put the blue bah- clay, mixed with pure cold wa- ter, in the proportion of so many ounces of clay to a pint of water. The formula which makes the exact required density is a trade secret. Into another goes the china clay and that is mixed with water to its required den- sity ; into the third is poured the now liquefied granite from its barrel; into the fourth the calcined, ground and liquefied 32 flint. Each of these blungers is fitted with an agitator, placed horizontally, which reminds me of a churn dasher. As it whirls over and oyer it dissolves and mixes the clays and stone and flint, until each is in a suit- able condition to be pumped from its own blunger into a large common vat, “mixing-pot.” A wooden gauge is placed in this vat, and the blue ball-clay slip, as it is now called, is run in until it has reached its place on the gauge; then the china clay slip, which adds to the whiteness and “keeps the mass more porous ; ” then the flint slip, which will make the whole less liable to crack and shrink, 33 and will help the fat, unctuous, blue ball-clay to stand up and keep its shape in baking, and which will give a ring to the well-fired plate and increase its whiteness; and, lastly, the stone slip, which adds whiteness, in- creases the density of the clays, and acts as a flux to make the paste more compact, closer in the grain. Each is run in to its own depth as indicated by its place on the gauge. To give the plates an agree- able bluish tint, something after the manner of the dairy woman who colors her butter and cheese with a little butter color or saffron, and as the laundress blues her clothes, the potter 34 filially puts into his materials a certain amount of ground oxide of cobalt. All the ingredients, after much stirring and working, are thoroughly commingled ; then the plug is pulled out, and the mixture is passed through two sets of very fine, brass sieves into a cistern below. The pot- ters call this an “ark.” It is interesting to observe to what an extent among these people many words, long obsolete in literature, are in daily use. From this receptacle force pumps send the strained slip through pipes into corrugated, wooden presses, in order to get rid, as much as possible, of all 35 the water which has been nec- essary, thus far, to thoroughly dissolve and mix the constitu- ents of the body, or paste, of the plates, and to make plastic the homogeneous mass. The presses are lined with a very close and stout cotton cloth. These lin- ings must be frequently washed, as often, certainly, as a change of body occurs. When the cloths are taken from the divis- ions, or “chambers,” of the press, their contents have been sub- jected to pressure and appear in the form of large, flat strips of dough. These strips a man rolls up and carries to a pug- mill to become yet more refined and solidified. 36 The dough is thrown in at the top of the mill, an upright, iron cylinder, having a revolv- ing, vertical shaft set with steel knives arranged in a spiral man- ner around the shaft with their edges somewhat depressed. The paste in its downward progress is cut and hacked and mangled much as some cooks treat their dough before baking ; and for about the same reason, unless the air is well expelled there will occur blisters from the bursting of the bubbles in the firing. It is finally forced out at the bottom of the mill through a sort of four-sided, six inch spout. As it emerges from this a white-bloused and aproned 37 workmen cuts it with a fine, brass wire into lengths of about two feet. y. IN THE PRESSERS ROOM. One of these pieces was car- ried into a small room where “the butter,” a girl, cut otf, with a slender, brass wire, a piece large enough for a “Harcourt” plate. She patted it between her hands to expel the air yet more, and put it on her machine in order to flatten and prepare it for the next workman, the presser. His machine is called a jigger. It is a spindle, resting on its point, with a head on which a mould made of plaster of Paris is placed. This mould was 39 made from the inside of a plate and is turned upside down. The flattened dough is placed upon it and pressed firmly and evenly by the presser with a small, thin, wooden instrument, termed a “p r °fd e ?” whose working edge is so cut that it shapes the out- line of the outside of the plate as it is whirled two or three times around. The presser dips his tool, or fingers, again and again, in a pot of water while he works, fashioning the outside and trimming the paste away as a woman cuts the extra dough from the edge of her pie-plate. After the mould, which was also made in this factory, had somewhat absorbed the moisture 40 from the dough plate, the latter had become strong enough to he taken off the mould, when it was stamped “P. G.” and dated “3-93.” Then I, very carefully, with the sharpened point of my lead pencil, pricked in the ini- tials of my own name on the bottom of each one of my half dozen, thus making sure that all the way through to the beau- tiful conclusion I should be fol- lowing, watching and handling this identical six. And now one of the girls (how interested all the workers were !) placed the plates in the “dob- by ,” a revolving set of shelves in a closet heated to the necessary temperature by a fire under- 41 neath, and there they remained until the forenoon of the next day, when they were taken out and fettled. The fettler held the plates one by one in her hand and deftly trimmed the edges with a small, steel instru- ment, which she now and again sharpened and hied. This is a thin, narrow piece of steel, bent at the end, and grooved to ht the scalloped edge and take off any extra clay after the piece has been fired in the dobby. It is worthy of note that all the clay thus pared off is gathered up and used again, probably in an inferior grade of earthen- ware. Our plates have large, shoal 42 scallops, alternating with small ones. This style is named “Harcourt” for the famous tem- perance reformer and liberal, Sir William Harcourt. After this little preliminary fettling, during which I won- dered if the objects of my regard would not crumble before my very eyes (but the girl evidently had no such anxiety), they were placed one by one in a whirler, face up this time, and now, somewhat hardened, yet still very susceptible to the wet sponge that the girl holds to the plate with her right hand as she rapidly revolves the whirler by her left hand, are further smoothed and then bedded in a 43 plaster of Paris setter partly filled with sifted sand, to keep them from losing shape after having been sponged, and while they are undergoing their first firing. The sand is also scattered between them, as a cook uses flour, to keep them from stick- ing and baking together. The dishes are usually carried away on a board by men who rest their load on the shoulder, but our young woman wanted to carry these ; so I followed her to the placer’s room not far away, where I waited, watching the busy men and making notes until the time came for my plates to go into the oven. VI. WITH THE PLACERS AND OVEN- MEN. The note-book reads thus : 44 Good weight, ’nough to crush him to the earth !” one man ex- claims, as he helps another to lift to his head a loaded saggar, two hundred pounds weight. A man has just brought on his shoulder to this room a board, padded and covered with flan- nel, holding thirty-two unbaked platters, eight piles, four in a pile. These are to go into the saggars (a reduction from the word safeguard), in which vessels they will remain while 45 being fired. Twenty platters in two piles of ten fill a saggar : first the placer puts enough of a rather coarse, brown sand, found in the district, into the safeguard to keep the lowest platter steady, and away from the bottom of the saggar ; then he places nine platters, sprink- ling sand between them; next he puts in a saucer upside down for a support to the tenth plat- ter, which, upside down, serves as the cover of the pile. A quick flame might find a way to dart one smoky flash between the saggars that would blacken this top dish, and should there accidentally be a little darken- 46 ing of the bottom of this one it would become a “second.” Saggars, — the deepest are thirty-two inches in height, filled with all sizes and shapes of un- baked ware, are being carried on the heads of the men, who often do not put so much as a finger up to steady their burden, and piled in the oven in col- umns, “bungs.” More of the sand, used between the dishes, is put between the saggars. This is all very interesting to observe. By and by comes the turn of my precious six. They are honored with a saggar to them- selves, and are put in it just as the fettler brought them from 47 her workroom. I accompany the man who has them on his head to the oven, and see them set away well up in a bung where they will remain from this Wednesday afternoon until next Monday morning. Flat ware like plates do not need so much heat as hollow ware, such as soup tureens, etc., and some parts of an oven must always be hotter than another. Eight saggars with their outer sides broken in, containing trial pieces of the dough, are put in as many different parts of the oven, where they can be easily reached through small holes from the outside. You remember an oven re- 48 sembles the down-turned bowl of an immense i4 T. D.” pipe; consequently the two highest piles of saggars are in the mid- dle (thirty saggars in each bung), and the lowest are at the sides. They are set upon bricks that there may be a circulation of heat beneath them. The saggars used in the first firing are unglazed. I stand within the oven and watch the men: four are piling the ware-filled saggars in four stages by means of step-ladders which they call “horses.” On the top of each bung goes a new clay saggar to be baked. As the upper part is filled the horses are removed, and a work- 49 man drops out. Now the oven is nearly full, and I will take a look outside. The inside of the oven is made of bricks, and a marl that will stand a much greater heat than ordinary mortar. Its shell, which is suggestive of an in- verted pipe bowl, is built of brick and common mortar, and is banded about with great iron bands to serve against any giving way of the structure. At equal distances around the oven are twelve mouths with double iron doors; into these, after the tires are well started underneath, coals, put in every few hours, will have been fed until sixteen or seventeen tons of coal shall 50 have been consumed in duly fir- ing the contents of this oven. Below each of these mouths is an open place where a boy under the eye of the oven man is making fires. He is bring- ing in great shovelfuls of glow- ing coals and tossing them upon the strong iron bars of the grate among big pieces of black coal. Now he has got his fires well agoing, and he builds up with bricks as closely as he can the open places where the ashes will fall. Above each mouth there is a draft to regulate the heat, and the condition of the fires will occasionally be deter- mined by a peep into the mouths between their double iron doors. 51 The man who has already been on duty for many hours without sleep will watch this oven until half-past six to-morrow morn- ing. Then the oven man or head placer will take charge of it with its valuable contents, and he will not go home or sleep again until five o’clock on Friday afternoon. He will be watch- ing, keeping up the fires most carefully, and smoking. “You want something when you are up with these ovens to pass away your time,” he says to me. How much depends on the faithfulness of these watchers ! Hundreds of pounds! I have been told that a whole ovenful of ware was once melted down 52 at a famous pottery of this dis- trict. The nearer completion the ware, the greater the loss of course. Finally the doorway is bricked up, as closely as possible with- out mortar, and now a workman carries a big platter full of mor- tar that I have just seen him mix of sand, and marl such as is used to set the bricks of the oven, with this he fills all the small cracks and interstices, pressing it in with his fingers ; this done he proceeds to plaster over the whole doorway, using his hands. “Why don’t you use a trowel?” I ask. “We can’t, couldn’t get it in the nicks,” he replies. This is 4 4 daubing the clammans.” The eight small openings, 2 1-2x2 inches, in the shell through which the oven man with a long iron rod from time to time draws out the before- mentioned trial pieces to help determine the progress of his firing, are each now closed by a brick put in endways, and so left that it can be readily pulled out. VII. MAKING THE SAGGARS. Now I go to see a saggar made. This important article will ordinarily serve through seven firings. Three kinds of marl enter into its composition: one sort is found only three hundred yards away, another a half mile off, and the third is brought from a distance of three miles. These are mixed to- gether with water, then a fine “grog” (old saggars ground in a “grog-mill” ) is added. The dough goes through a pug-mill. As it comes slowly from the spout it is cut into sections, and 55 these are borne on the heads of young workmen to a room where they are thoroughly beaten with a heavy maul into a big pile. Then with a steel cutter a piece is cut from the pile and beaten out flat upon a table ; first with a round ashen maul, afterwards with a square flat one. The table is sprinkled with sand as a cook flours her moulding board when rolling her dough. This large sheet of paste is cut into strips long enough for the side of the saggars, which average from nine to nineteen inches in height. One of these strips is now fitted and moulded around an oval, wooden drum. The seam is well beaten down, and joined closely 56 with the aid of a wet rag, and the top edge is made solid, to guard against cracking, by the addition of more dough in which are pressed small pieces of broken saggars. The bottom of the saggar is beaten out with- in an oval, iron frame furnished with handles, and is put upon a revolving board. The drum with the moulded side is set upon it. The bottom is then pared to within an inch of the drum, and is worked up by a piece of wood to make a junc- ture with the side until the join- ing is effaced. To fill up and smooth the seam on the inside a common earthenware clay, and sand wet together are used. A 57 flat stick dipped in water levels the edge, and the saggar is set away to dry before being fired. A cover three inches thick, styled an “eller,” is made for the top saggar of a column. “To-morrow the hot furnace flame Will search the heart and try the frame, And stamp with honor or with shame These vessels made of clay.” VIII. IN THE DRAWING-WAREHOUSE. On the morning of Monday, March 20, 1 was on the bank in good season. My plates had safely reached the biscuit stage. While they were undergoing their fiery ordeal I was visiting in Birmingham, but all the time I had been not a little anxious about this baking ! The process of firing occupies about fifty hours, and during the last twenty-four the heat is very intense. As many more hours are necessary for the cooling-off, which must be gradual. I went first into the “drawing-warehouse,” to 59 which the biscuit ware is carried immediately upon being drawn from the oven, to wait until the contents of the oven should be partly taken out, then I could sit in it and watch the men at work. Let my note-book again be the medium : Different clays give dif- ferent colored wares : white body, P.G. body (porcelain granite like our plates), and ivory body. Big basketfuls of all these are coming warm from the oven to this room where a young man examines each piece of biscuit. A fire crack, unnoticed by my untrained eye, is instantly de- tected and noted as the piece is rapidly scanned by the pair of 60 sharp eyes to which this work is entrusted, and a quick knock at the same moment decides its soundness. A fire-crack shows in the bottom of a pitcher, “the woman can stop it,” a stroke of the lead pencil indicates the flaw and the necessity. This barely discovered crack about a handle would in the second firing grow to a larger and perhaps fatal one. This, filled thoroughly, will be put into the “hardening- on-kiln a large fire-crack having been repaired would need to go again into the clay oven. Girls in white flannel aprons, made of a straight piece a foot wide by two long, pinned so as to make a waist, unpack the 61 baskets and place their contents in order, cups together, saucers together, covered dishes are un- covered and piled together, etc. In an adjoining room two girls sort cups, a woman is sort- ing saucers. I tremble contin- ually with fear of their breaking the dishes. There goes a han- dle from a cup ! It takes eleven men nine or ten hours to draw this oven. IX. IN THE OYEN. Now I am asked to go to the oven. I shall see my plates taken out. One of the men brings a ware basket and turns it upside down within the oven that I may sit down upon it. The atmosphere of the oven is rather warm even yet. Some of the men handle the hot saggars with a leathern protection on their hands. “If Buffalo Bill had to do this work he’d think he was work- ing,” one of the men exclaims as he receives a hot saggar full of ware from the man who is 63 unpiling them from the tops of the columns. The men stand at different heights on the piled up saggars. A little light falls upon them from the opening in the top of the oven, and a naked gas-light flickers within beside the door- way. One man is working in trousers and a white linen, waisted apron, no shirt. The muscles of his shoulders and arms are immense, and stand out in a wonderful relief. A running talk goes on; not very easily understood is their rich, full, Staffordshire dialect. A man comes down and as he stands before me wiping the perspiration streaming from his 64 face and shoulders says : “Doesn't that deserve something ?” “Deserve something ?” I re- peated quickly after him. “Yes; something inside.” “O, yes; certainly, plenty of good English beef,” I replied. “But something wet?” “Something wet]” I again re- peated interrogatively. “Yes; milk and eggs.” Now it dawned upon my slow mind ! I had not had a thought of drink-money before and happened to have only three ha’pence in change (three cents), giving him those I explained that I had no more small money ; and I did not approve of beer ! He took them without a thank- 65 you and went out of the oven. One of his companions shouted after him rather derisively : “Don’t lose ’em !” My plates were taken down and given warm into my hands. A little later another of the men came to me outside and said: “You might have given him a shilling!” “But I had nothing less than a half sovereign ($2.40).” “He could have got it changed. He would have brought it back to you.” This was an enlight- ening, and as Mr. Turner with plenty of change happened along just then, the shilling (24 cents) was given with the injunction not to spend a penny for any- 66 thing but milk and eggs, and the warning that I should stay by to see. In a few minutes I was good-naturedly shown the coveted refreshment. X. PRINTING THE PLATES. The plates were next taken to the printing room, and I was given permission to go by myself into the room where the copper- plates are kept and select the designs for decoration. After much examination and consideration I decided upon Mayflowers, bachelor’s buttons, daisies, a delicate, star-like, flow- er pattern, somewhat conven- tionalized, and two others, which my friend Mr. Turner prefers, “a creeper,” and a dainty spray. Again to the printing-room. The printer first cleans the cop- 68 perplates with spirits of tar, and that is cleaned off* in a box of sawdust, then the copperplate is heated on the top of a small, brick furnace. The remaining tar and sawdust is pressed out of the pattern with soft tissue paper. The chosen colors for the prints are prepared : a delicate dove color, one of Mr. Turner’s own receipts, for the bachelors buttons, the daisies and the star- flower ; sepia and chocolate for the others. The paint is rubbed into the lines of the engraved copper- plate with a dab ; what is super- fluous is scraped off with a thin, broad, flexible knife, and a first 69 impression is taken under the press, to further clean the plate. For the print a tissue paper wet with soapy water is always used. Now the transferrer takes the print, cuts away the needless pa- per with her scissors, and fits the pattern on the plate. Some- times the same pattern is used for plates of different shapes and sizes and then it becomes a nice piece of work to adapt and join it, often three or four times. When the print has been fitted and allowed to set a few min- utes a plain tissue paper is laid over it, and the transferrer rubs it with a long dab. The outer paper is removed, and again the pattern is rubbed in hard, with 70 a tight roll of flannel this time. A piece of leather a foot square is nailed on the bench in front of each transferrer ; on this she rests her plate while she works. After the transferring, the plates are allowed to remain an hour and a half, to dry, then the tissue paper of the pattern is all washed off in a tub full of wa- ter. The girl who washes the plates erases with a piece of In- dian rubber any little trace of unnecessary printing. This done she sets her plates on edge, to drain and dry^until the follow- ing day. Printers and transfer- rers are usually paid by the piece. XI. THE HARDENING-KILN. At eleven o’clock the next forenoon we put the plates into the “hardening-on-kiln” in which they were heated red hot, to burn all the oil out of the paint that it may hold the glaze. There are three kilns in a row together ; the plates went into the middle one, which has the most even heat. These kilns are arched over the top. A small double iron door, perhaps 8 x 15 inches, high up in the end opposite the one by which we enter, seems to somewhat regulate the heat and let out any smoke, etc. from 72 the paint and oil. There are two fire holes under the middle kiln ; one in front, and one at the back. Flues carry the fire under the floor and between the w T alls up the sides of each kiln. “There’s flues all ’round ’em,” the placer says. The ware is packed in the kilns, every plate separated from its fellows by three small square pieces of earthenware, “bits.” The fold- ing, iron doors, each made with an upper and lower section, are closed temporarily until all the kilns are filled, when they are plastered up tightly. Coal will be put on the fires up to seven o’clock P. M.; then the dishes 73 will be again left to themselves for the next twelve hours. XII. GLAZING AND THE GLAZE. On the succeeding Monday morning, March 27, I saw my plates dipped in a tub containing a glaze which looked very like cream. The dipper was clean and tidy in his white linen blouse and apron. He used, in dipping, a wire, fastened to his right hand by a leathern ring around his thumb, and so bent at the end as to grasp the plate underneath. When the plates had been dipped a girl carried them in a pile with three, tiny, three-footed “stilts” placed be- tween each, and on the top one, 75 to a warm room to remain an hour. The biscuit body absorbed the moisture of the glaze quickly and then a white powder showed all over the plates. The pat- tern had utterly disappeared as soon as they were dipped. A bottleful of the liquid glaze ready for use is before me. It is not an ordinary covering ; but a beautiful, fritted glaze. The materials in the list below are melted together into a liquid glass, which is broken up by running it into cold water. A specimen of the frit is in my col- lection. It is a semi-translucent, bluish white glass. Borax, or boracic acid from Tuscany. 76 Tincal from Thibet. Soda crystals, or carbonate of soda. Flint from Dieppe. Stone from Cornwall. Whiting, or carbonate of lime. China clay from Devonshire. “The tone and quality of the glaze depend upon the chemical knowledge displayed in deciding upon the quantities of the com- ponent parts. A proportion of the above glass is mixed with Cornish stone and carbonate of lead, and again the beauty of the glaze is determined by the knowledge in deciding the pro- portions. These ingredients are ground together and become the cream in which you have 77 seen your plates immersed.” Thus wrote Mr. Brownfield, who, as a chemist, is hardly second to any in the potteries. But much more than beauty depends upon a glazing. If it crackles it ab- sorbs greases and odors, and the article becomes unfit for the use of a clean, dainty, and fastidious buyer, or cook. The receipts for glazes are the profoundest secrets. XIII. THE SECOND FIRING. Once more the plates are packed in a saggar for firing, and it is interesting to know that this time they must be put in a glazed saggar, glazed on the inside and on the bottom out- side; for you remember the bot- tom of one safeguard is the cover to the one beneath it. An unglazed saggar would “suck” the glaze from the plates to it- self. The plates are now placed edgeways. Across the bottom of the saggar is laid a long, glazed, prism-shaped, clay “sad- dle” on which the lower edge of 79 the plate rests, while the upper edge is held in place by an earthenware 4 ‘thimble.” A lit- tle soft clay is stuck against the inside of the saggar; into this the first thimble is set. Another thimble fits into the first one, and its tip holds a second plate, and so on. The edge of the saggar in this firing is sprinkled with ground flint, and a roll of a special soft clay is put all around oh top of that to keep any smoke, or vapor, or ashes from its contents. Iron in the coal ashes is likely to cause brownish spots on the ware. The filled saggar was borne on a workman’s head and placed in the glost oven. 80 Trial pieces, often in the shape of small rings, to show when the vitrifaction is perfect are put in this oven. These clay and glost ovens are built according to Minton’s patents. The flames from the oven mouths go up ten flues, technically called 4 ; bags,” 2 1-2 feet high x 1 1-2 wide x 1 1-2 deep. The brick walls of the oven above the flues are blackened and glassy on the surface from the flames of many firings. Be- tween the flues are holes in the floor over which the bungs of safeguards containing the dishes are set up on bricks. Eighteen inches from these holes is another circle of similar ones. All 81 the apertures in this circle are four and a half inches square. Over each one is placed a column of saggars, elevated so as to leave the openings free. In the center is the “well-hole,” a foot in diameter. Outside of this are still more holes, thirty- four in all. A draught through these draws the flames down and up the ten flues between the walls of the oven and its shell. The exhaust smoke and flames go out through the open top. These large ovens with their smoke and waving flames dot the sad landscape of North Staf- fordshire, giving it, especially at night, a weird and strange ap- 82 pearance to the traveler unac- customed to it all. After each firing the cracks must be stopped in the glost, as in the clay oven, and the door- way bricked up and plastered with “clamming dirt.” The plates will remain here about twenty-five hours. The heat of this oven is much less than that of the clay oven. When the oven is ready to be opened, a slide in the top of it, just beneath the “crown-hole” in the outsiders drawn, and the upper part of the doorway is “knocked in,” thus making a draught in order to cool it off. I attempted to look within as soon as one had been opened. More than one trial 83 was necessary ; it was so very hot. Everything was a beauti- ful, flaming, fiery red. One could perceive no outline of sag- gar. After a little, the opening in the top showed black. XIV. IN THE SORTING AND POLISHING- ROOMS. The thimbles and saddles that had supported the plates while in the glost oven had caused tiny elevations on the edges of the plates, and they had to be taken to the sorting room where two women beat them with their heavy, steel chisels in such a manner as to make me anxious lest at this late stage the objects of my tender solicitude should be shattered. The glassy atoms that fly off here must be danger- ous for throat, and lungs, and eyes. The edges of the plates are not perfect yet. In the polish- ing-room a man sits solitary with basketfuls of fine earthen- ware and costly china on the floor about him. We must visit him. First he holds the little spots to a small emery wheel, kept continually wet by a damp sponge adjusted so as to touch the wheel as it revolves, then to another, and larger, wheel, a wooden one. This was touched with a sponge on a stick, dipped occasionally in “a little medi- cine,” compounded after a pre- scription which the polisher said was “a secret” of his own. “I will tell you one thing there is in it,” he volunteered, “there is 86 flint.” A third time these plates went under a wheel, this time a cork one, and had they been china, a fourth, a bristle wheel, would have been called into use. XV. WITH THE DECORATOR. Back to the familiar decora- ting room ! I seated myself beside a girl apprentice, to see the printed patterns “tilled in.” Her hair is a lovely red, and that at the front is drawn softly from the forehead and fastened with a hairpin in a little twist behind, leaving all the rest to flow down her back over the dull green, worsted gown. There are points of orange, and yellow, in her ha- zel eyes, and her delicate pink cheeks are well matched by the small pink and white checkered 88 apron. She is “ turned sixteen” and has accomplished four and a half of the seven years’ appren- ticeship. At present, she earns, on an average, about eight shil- lings ($2.00) for six days’ work. One half of this is allowed to the “master.” By and by he will receive four pence in the shilling (one-third), and during the last year of her time two pence only in the shilling will be allowed to the employer. When our maiden shall have become a journey woman she will have all she can earn. Her work is paid for by the dozen, if plates, if toilet ware, by the set. She holds our plate, tipped upon her left hand. A square, white earthenware tile before her is her palette. There are two or three little puddles of paint on it. The colors were ground on a glass muller, in a small room used exclusively for the preparation of dry paints and gold, by a woman who does nothing else all the day long. And now they have been mixed here with fat oil (turpentine). Sweet sixteen dips her camel’s- hair brush in the oil, “to make it work level,” and proceeds to tint all the petals, then the sta- mens. When the plates had dried a little they were put into the hands of Mrs. S , in the ad- joining room, to be finished with 90 gilt lines on edges and shoul- ders, and to have gilt dots added to the bachelor’s button and daisy plates. The gold is dark brown in color before it is fired. “Liquid gold” was used on all save the Mayflower plate; that shines with three lines of the very best gold, such as will stand many years’ wear. It is fasci- nating to watch this work, and it looks very easy ; but neither you, nor I, after months of trial could make those lines. I am told that not" every one can be- come a first-rate “bander and liner a good eye and steady hand are necessary. Each plate with a small piece of wet cloth underneath it, and a leaden 91 weight in it, both, to keep the plate steady, is set on a small, round, revolving table. The latter is turned by the left hand, and the delicate camel’s-hair brush is held to the plate by the right hand. More than once the plate goes around. A still more delicate brush makes the dots. Again the plates are piled up with “stilts” between them (these stilts are larger than the others), care being taken that their points do not touch the decoration. XVI. THE ENAMEL KILN. Now the plates are about to undergo, for the last time, a strong heat. Movable iron shelves, perforated with inch holes, to allow the heat to circu- late, furnish receptacles for the dishes in the enamel, or muffle kiln. The props for the shelves are also of iron, and adjustable; so that as fast as one shelf is filled another can be put up, and close packing is thus accom- plished. Double iron doors, each in upper and lower sec- tions, swing wide to admit a man with his load of decorated ware. 93 These doors are lined with Stourbridge fire-clay, for if the doors were of iron alone they would melt under the fervent heat that fixes the gold and col- ors on the glaze. This kiln is kept very clean, and is often whitewashed inside. It is about 16 feet deep, 9 feet high, and 4 feet 4 inches wide. It is one of a row of four enamel-kilns, fed by sixteen mouths. The fire and heat circulate through flues which do not open into the body of the kiln. All the cracks must be stopped with clay. Each kiln has its small trial hole, closed as in the other cases with a brick, in the upper section of the right-hand door, from which are 94 taken out small fragments of earthenware like our plates, daubed with carmine and gold; these are used as tests because they change much during the firing. I watch the two sturdy young men, who, with sleeves rolled up, are drawing the finished ware into piles and baskets from the kiln, while others come to hear the crockery away. The clatter of the dishes is some- thing alarming ! It seems as if they would smash every one. I say as much. Fenton answers, “No; we learn to be careful. I’ve broken two lots, and at one time I had to pay about fifteen shillings !” XVII. BURNISHING. After the plates, embellished with their golden lines and pretty tints, had been burned in the enamel-kiln, they were all finished with the exception of the Mayflower plate, whose “best gold” lines had yet to be burnished. This need intro- duced us into the burnishing- room, and into the company of women who had worked many years at this branch of decora- ting. I asked her, who took the plate in hand, how long she had worked. 96 “I served my time here, the time is in the book in the office ; but I don’t keep it in my head, think it is about forty-five years.” First she dipped a dampened, white cotton cloth in silver sand and rubbed the gilded edge; then another cloth in whitening and again rubbed the edge ; then she polished it with a clean cloth, not allowing the fingers to come in contact with the gold. After this it was rubbed very hard with a bloodstone fitted into a handle. On the burnisher’s workbench was a collection of gem tools, agates and bloodstones. She 4 ‘couldn’t do without half a doz- en, some have a dozen, need 97 two agates.” For some work the gems must be sharp-pointed. I noticed that the scalloped edge was burnished with a larger stone than was used on the fine line next to it. These lines having been “browned” with bloodstones were a second time whitened, “to finish it,” and once more burnished with the gems. It is now easy to under- stand how much longer gilded decoration, that can undergo such treatment, will last than the liquid gold so much in vogue. The original designs for dec- oration had been adapted to my taste : borders cut off, and gilt lines substituted ; the impressions printed in special 98 colors, and tints for filling in changed. Who could tell but that some- body might want crates of plates like mine'? To provide for an event so much to be hoped for, I took the dear six the next day to one of the artists’ rooms, that a young man there might transfer prints, made in the printing-room, to sheets of plain paper, and color in water colors sections of pat- terns for the sample-book from each plate. XVIII. THE SIX IN HAND. Oh the 10th of April, the twenty-eighth day from the be- ginning of my observations, I congratulated myself upon the possession of very tangible evi- dence of great patience and beautiful good-will exercised bv the many men and women of the Guild with whom I, a stran- ger from a far-away country,, had spent so many pleasant and profitable hours. Remember the many little journeys on this “ pot-bank,” and the number of hands through which, from first to last, these plates have passed ; 100 the time and coal consumed in their production, and the mate- rials that have entered into the composition of body and glaze, to say nothing of what has gone to make up the receipt for print colors, filling-in-paints, and oils. Consider how many lands, and hands, and brains, and breezes have lain under tribute for cen- turies to this fair end, and our convenience. And these will be retailed in our American shops for from about two and a quarter to three dollars a dozen, according to decoration! The tariff is sixty per cent ! Should you grudge the price? Do you wonder that the industry languishes in England X 101 This leads me to the reason for the formation of the Brown- fields Guild-Pottery Society. “The Potteries” include eleven or twelve towns in the upper valley of the Trent, extending as many miles, and so closely connected that a stranger cannot tell where one town begins and another leaves off. These towns aggregate three hundred thou- sand, or more, inhabitants, who are potters, colliers, and the tradesmen supported by such a community. Since 1879, master-potters have been complaining of a fall- ing off in their profits and have been continually insisting on a reduction of wages, while the 102 wage-workers declare that their earnings are being cut down C C 1 below the living point. For nearly two years prior to October. 1892. Mr. Arthur Brownfield, principal, during more than twenty-one years, of the long-established firm of Wil- liam Brownfield and Sons, one of the six most famous English pottery companies, had used his pen and personal influence in order to bring about a better state of things. He claimed that reckless com- petition. undercutting, under- selling, the Moose system of set- ting down apprentices,” and the lack of Christian sympathy be- tween masters and men are re- 103 sponsible for the bad condition of the district, and he urged the formation of a Potters’ Guild, composed of representative mas- ters and men elected for one year ; for the creation of a har- mony of feeling and action be- tween labor and capital ; for the improvement in quality of manu- factures by employment of well- trained operatives, and for the raising of selling-prices and the keeping up of the wages of the men. His efforts met with but little practical encouragement from the three hundred manufacturers of pottery and porcelain in North Staffordshire. XIX. FORMATION OF THE GUILD. At the close of the midsummer holiday in August, 1892, his firm made known its intention of closing the business; profits had become too small. Thereupon a delegation of the old workmen waited upon Mr. Arthur Brownfield, whom they love, offering, if he would buy out the other partners and continue the business, to work for him four weeks out of every eight without pay. There was a conference of the partners. The committee of men was recalled, and my informant, one of the 105 number, relates that their “mas- ter” with tears flowing down his cheeks assured them that he would accede to their desire. Now Mr. Brownfield began to put in operation, on a smaller scale among his own work-peo- ple, his idea of a guild ; and on the 15th of October, 1892, there appeared in the Midland news- papers a prospectus which set forth the scheme of the Brown- fields Guild-Pottery Society, Limited. Its share capital £20,- 000, shares £1 each. The “chief- worker,” as the founder democratically styles himself, took six thousand shares in part payment of his purchase money, and the other working-members 106 of the Guild, men and women, many of whom during their working lives, have been em- ployees of the Brownfields, two thousand shares. Within a month from the ap- pearance of the advertisement trades unions had subscribed largely, and co-operative stores had pledged their support to the Company. “The shares taken by the Founder will be in the form of Loan Stock (bearing in- terest at the rate of 5 per cent.) which, under the constitu- tion of the Guild, will, together with the £2,000 subscribed by the workers, remain as perma- nent security for other investors, 107 as the certificate by which the capital held by the Founder and his associates is secured does not confer a right to demand payment of the principal from the Guild, so long as any claim for share-capital held by the outside public remains unpaid. “It is hoped that the fact of there being £8,000 practically irremovable will beget sufficient confidence in the minds of in- tending investors. “It is proposed to pay dividend on capital at the rate of £6 per cent, per annum. “The remaining profits, after providing liberally for deprecia- tion and other charges on the busi- ness, will be allotted as follows : 108 44 1. Three fourths to all per- sons who, during the whole of the period to which the division re- lates, have been employed by the Guild-Pottery Society for not less than six months in the whole — the proportion of prof- its falling due to each person to be determined in such man- ner as the committee may de- termine from time to time. 54 2. One fourth to the custom- ers in such proportion and in such manner as may be deter- mined from time to time by the committee. The share of profit falling to the workers will not be paid in cash, but will be credited to their account as share-capital in the Guild, thus 109 retaining it in the Guild for further use. “As an additional security to outside investors the active workers in the Guild-Pottery have agreed with the Commit- tee of Management to take up, by means of weekly instalments, a number of shares in propor- tion to their earnings, in addition to the £2,000 previously men- tioned as being invested by them. “All persons interested in the movement for the improvement of the conditions under which labor is now employed are in- vited to become members and shareholders of the Guild, and thus be active partners in the 110 work of labor emancipation.” (Prospectus.) The management is in the hands of a committee of sixteen, consisting of the heads of each department, Mr. Brownfield being general manager, thus ex- pensive, disinterested employees and large salaries are done away with. XX. CONCLUSION. Mr. Brownfield, an opponent of the unchristian and inhuman doctrine of “buy in the cheapest, and sell in the dearest market,” is an advocate of the beautiful principles of the political econo- my, which Mr. Ruskin has de- clared in his “Twenty-five Let- ters to A Working Man,” and he has cast in his lot with his workmen in accordance with his belief. It remains to be seen if hia fellow-associates are able to live up to the high principle which should animate them. One of 112 the members of the Society said to me : “the Guild must suc- ceed,” and he added, “I would lose my home before I would see it go down, and I have a wife and eight children.” Certainly, petty jealousies, the endeavor to lower another in the confidence of his coadju- tors, to supplant, and to bid for personal popularity and suprem- acy are yet too common among our fallible fellow-men, and such an association of four or five hundred men and women of so many minds calls for much self- denial. If this Guild can tide over the present time of industrial disturbances, it will offer an op- 113 portunity for the development of great individual patience, and the practice of that self-denial and unselfishness which con- duces to the great moral growth that moves the world, influences the ages, and brings on the mil- lennium. In this organization men and women are in “due proportion capitalists, wage-earners, profit- sharers;” and each should feel that “degree of conscientious- ness which will not permit a piece of work to leave his hands until he can no further improve it,” and that “all political econo- my as well as all higher virtue depends first on sound work.” I would that these verses, writ- 114 ten almost three hundred years ago : “Teach me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do in anything. To do it as for Thee : ******* All may of Thee partake : Nothing can be so mean, Which with this tincture (for Thy sake) Will not grow bright and clean. A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine : Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws. Makes that and th’ action fine. This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold : For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less be told/’ I would that these should be printed in letters of gold on the walls of every school-room and J 115 workshop in the land together with this other from a very old book : “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.” Sound work and brotherly love! We need no other sol- vents for the labor question. “Behind us in our path we cast The broken potsherds of the past, And all are ground to dust at last, And trodden into clay !” APPENDIX APPENDIX. A. In the foregoing pages I have sketched the founding, in 1893, of the only Society in England manufacturing crock- ery under the Industrial Acts of 1876. It would seem as if “there could not have been a more un- fortunate time for the Guild- Pottery to have been launched.” It is the opinion of those quali- fied to judge that 1893 was “the very worst year for trade ever experienced in the Potteries the questions of silver coinage and tariff reform almost stopped shipment to America ; India 120 was suffering on account of the silver rupee ; Australia from bank crashes, and the great and prolonged coal strike in Eng- land depressed the home trade. We learn from the printed statement of accounts and bal- ance sheet of the Brownfields Guild-Pottery for the twelve months ending December 30th, 1893, vouched for by public au- ditors, that the sales, which in- creased as the months went on and the Society held together, amounted to £19,100 3s. 6d. (Mr. Brownfield, interviewed, said during his twenty-three years in the business the small- est yearly sales were £29,000); that the interest, £425 Is. 9d., 121 was paid on the preferred shares and loans, and there was a “net revenue” of £149 13s. 5d. Properly speaking that sur- plus should have been paid as interest on the deferred shares, held by Mr. Brownfield and a few workers, but it was not suf- ficient, and at the first annual meeting it was voted to set it apart as a nucleus for the next year. The actual cash balance was £34 4s. 5d. The remainder of the gain being in stock, which was “carefully valued” at £7,787 16s. 4d. The wage-earners worked all the year, at an average of four and three fourths days a week, and were paid £11,334 14s. 2d. 122 Owing to the small trade, they were obliged to live to a great extent on their savings, and con- sequently the amount of their proposed investments was les- sened. They have learned some- thing of the responsibilities and risks of capital. Before the Guild started it was necessary “to reduce materials, working plant, and stocks below a proper working level,” which reduction was partly made up during the year. On December 30, 1893, many shares remained unsubscribed for. As usual, there was a lack of confidence in the new under- taking, and much ill-informed speculation as to its ultimate 123 success or failure. In this con- nection it may be interesting to Americans to know that Judge Hughes of ‘‘Torn Brown” fame has been from the beginning an earnest and sympathetic sup- porter of the scheme. Mr. Brownfield is quoted in the Staffordshire Post of Feb- ruary 24, 1894, as saying in an interview, “We are all right so long as we can make sufficient sales to keep the work-people employed at wages that will find them a living and obtain such ready payments from our cus- tomers for the goods as will enable us to pay the wages and satisfy the creditors who supply us with our raw material.” 124 The Guild-Pottery Society re- ceived considerable damage on the night of March 2, 1894, when a fire occurred which de- stroyed the bulk of the china working moulds and “almost every piece of decorated crock- ery, in any and every stage, on the china works,” including the i beautiful vase, “The Earth,” concerning this the present wri- ter quotes from Mr. Brownfield’s letter in a Staffordshire newspa- per, “With what the loss of the vase (and the other beautiful pieces which will, I fear, never be replaced) means to me, I need not trouble your readers; but many of those who saw it stand- ing boldly out in relief, with the 125 lurid flames licking it on all sides, will understand how a man feels when his mansion is burned down, his family portraits and the priceless heirlooms of centuries are destroyed, whilst his modern furniture and things easily purchasable with money, are spared to him. Such about were my feelings on standing amidst the ruins of everything of which as a potter I was proud, and of the great work in which with proper ambition I had looked for the name of Brown- field to live.” “The actual loss, uncovered by insurance, cannot, under any circumstances, exceed £250.” A private letter, under date 126 of June 18, 1894, reports grow- ing prosperity, and declares that “the Guild has come to stay.” B. As an instance of the value of an occasional American order, I will mention that the old firm of William Brownfield & Sons once executed a Vanderbilt com- mission which engaged the atten- tion of thirty men for three years. C. The name celadon was origi- nally given to the soft color be- tween blue and green on a very 127 old, and exceedingly rare and valuable Oriental porcelain by the caprice of the ladies of the court of Henry the Fourth, king of France and of Navarre. It was to this monarch that Honore d’Urfe dedicated the first volume, published in 1610 , of his pastoral romance, L’as- tree, whose hero bears the name of Celadon. To-day it is one of the “ stock names for a lover in the French drama,” and has come to mean, even in an American dictionary y “a sentimental lover.” . GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00140 2722 ■cHsi IK^-r-r5 ^ jvrirrf Hh pru: rHffre? £HK3_ SiHH: iiSajr^ r:^: nH r jHn^Siiinssri: i ^^SHHr" 41 : ^^88BS§S§1hh8M SB F~ :r.r.r.:: nnnrjr: ::r.r.r„*;: : nr.:: rirzt 2 liilndf ^hhhS^ nUil HHt^SS: csrrt w - 14 nr..-:;:r.r^:; ::u::: ii’n i? inr.^u; :::;j 25f HHHHHHHiSfHJ: h i£§rf*fplr.r ®SSiH :H.-'J. ; {" : ■ f: : : : : . : ri i ; : i : ;' : : r : : : : ii ; HH: l‘iv. 3 r_'^.nr„*u: n.-u: rzn: in : :*. trx ;:^r.cr«”^ 4 ^*iacnr ~ " Gtxsn* u-^vr^^un:^ *&b ;;:: ^".r^r^cnr,ncn; :£ -I q I £ r -f S r= 4= ' IHHHH : i f: f • i* li f2 } \~iP. j f? * IKH K Hr ^ ^^MPliM feggg gg? ’ iHH : : ilHi :?i :i;S: i iru ; -* » :«)’! 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