A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



spirits and acids of all kinds. Stoneware, it may 

 be noted, unlike earthenware, is only fired once. 

 The time spent in the kiln is about forty-eight 

 hours, after which the ware undergoes cooling 

 and testing processes that occupy about three 

 weeks. 



The chief modern representative of the indus- 

 try is the firm of Messrs. Price, Powell & Co., 

 at the ' Old Stoneware Potteries ' in St. Thomas' 

 Street. The firm of Messrs. Price, the oldest 

 branch of the partnership, was established in 

 1740, since when it has gradually absorbed 

 most of its smaller rivals. About 100 men and 

 boys are employed in all sections of the manu- 

 facture, which includes the basket-making neces- 

 sary for wickered jars. Every kind of stone 

 jug, bottle, pan, filter, and barrel is produced, 

 almost all being ' thrown ' on the potter's wheel. 

 The clays used are brought by vessel from 

 Devonshire and Dorsetshire pits, where they are 

 cut in square lumps. These are well dried and 

 pounded up, then soaked and passed through pug 

 mills which render the clay fit for use. 



Ordinary clay pottery was made at Bristol 

 from local clay in the reign of Edward I, 1 and 

 the industry was in full swing in the 1 6th 

 century. The i8th century produced two 

 rather famous kinds of ware, Bristol porcelain 

 and Bristol china. The former is described by 

 a traveller in 1751 as made of 'calcined flint 

 and the soapy rock at Lizard Point.' He also 

 describes the ' beautiful white sauce-boats adorned 

 with reliefs of festoons,' which are almost the 

 only specimens of the porcelain with which we 

 are now acquainted. This fabric was made in 

 ' soft paste,' and differed wholly from ' Bristol 

 china,' a far more famous product, much re- 

 sembling Dresden china. In fact the cross, 

 which is the mark of Bristol china, is often found 

 in conjunction with the crossed swords of 

 Dresden. The invention was due to Messrs. 

 Champion and Cookworthy, who formed a com- 

 pany/ under a patent, in 1770, but seven years 

 later sold their factory to a Staffordshire firm, by 

 whom it was finally closed in 1782. Champion's 

 flower-groups were a triumph of ' hard-paste ' 

 modelling in biscuit. Specimens of his china are 

 now rare, and highly valued by collectors. 8 



Elsewhere some of the oldest potteries in the 

 county still survive at Cranham, where local 

 tradition ascribes their foundation to the Romans. 

 (Some connexion may possibly be traced be- 

 tween this theory and the Domesday record of 

 five potters at Haresfield.) Two works exist at 

 the present day, owned by Messrs. Ritchings and 

 Stirling. The latter gentleman has in the last 

 few years extended the industry, which formerly 



8 5' 



1 Bristol Mins. Accts. 28-29 

 No. 7. 



' See Arrowsmith's Diet, of Bristol, 328-9. 



consisted only in the manufacture of flower- 

 pots, pans, drain-pipes, and a few rough jars of 

 brown ware, by introducing the art of green- 

 glazing. Much ornamental pottery is now 

 turned out. 8 



At a small factory at Coleford, which has 

 been in existence nearly fifty years, brown ware, 

 both glazed and unglazed, is also produced, be- 

 sides chimney-pots, tiles, crests, fire-bricks, and 

 building bricks. At Littleton upon Severn the 

 'Whale Brick and Tile Company,' founded 

 about 1860, has works covering some sixteen 

 acres and employing fifteen men, who make bricks, 

 pipes, and ordinary red tiles. A brick-field is 

 also worked at Dumbleton near Tewkesbury. 

 Other clay-pits are opened in various parts of 

 the Lias, notably at Robin's Wood Hill, Stroud, 

 and Stonehouse. The ' Stonehouse Brick and 

 Tile Company ' possesses fine deposits of clay, 

 which have already been worked to a depth of 

 100 ft. and show no signs of exhaustion. 

 Starting on a small scale in 1890, the firm have 

 been able to enlarge their works to the present 

 yearly capacity of 10,000,000 bricks of every 

 style, plain and ornamental, besides terra-cotta 

 goods of various kinds. The factory is excel- 

 lently equipped, having a chimney stack 200 ft. 

 high, six steam-engines, and a hot-air drying 

 plant. 



There are also a number of brick-fields near 

 Bristol, where, for a short time in the middle 

 of the 1 7th century, 'potts of glass-house 

 clay ' were made by Dagney, an Italian, for use 

 as smelting-forges in the Forest of Dean. 4 



While upon the subject of building, it may be 

 well to notice two substitutes for brick and mar- 

 ble respectively, both manufactured in Gloucester. 

 One is Calway's portable cement slabs, a composi- 

 tion of granite and cement,made in blocks ready for 

 building, 2^ ft. long by 2 ft. wide, and 2 in. thick. 

 The other invention is that of enamelled slate, 

 which is manufactured by three Gloucester firms, 

 Messrs. Gee & Sons, and Sessions & Sons, and 

 the Phoenix Enamelled Slate Company. Here 

 slate is given the veined appearance of marble by an 

 interesting process called ' dipping.' The colours 

 are placed on the surface of water, which is then 

 shaken, so that a waving appearance is given to 

 the colours. The slate is then dipped into the 

 water, so that the colours adhere in the pattern 

 produced by the ripples of the water. Gloucester 

 is now so admittedly eminent in this particular 

 trade that, when firms in other districts to which 

 the manufacture has spread are in need of work 

 men, they advertise in Gloucester papers. 



The total number of persons employed in the 

 brick, cement, pottery, and glass industries in 

 1901 was 1,944. 



1 These works have just closed (Sept. 1906). 

 4 Dud Dudley, Mctallum Martis (1665), p. 22. 



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