A HISTORY OF SURREY 



inventions of his own. Mr. Jewett says that 

 two of these inventions, his wheel and his 

 lathe, have been very important improve- 

 ments in the potters' art. Other inventions 

 were his double glaze or Bristol glaze kiln and 

 his salt glaze and pipe kiln 'since (in 1878) 

 adopted generally.' Mr. Cliff seems to have 

 been liberally disposed towards the adoption 

 of new methods, and to have opened his 

 works to experiments with the inventions of 

 others, for we are told that both Carr's 

 ' disintegrant ' and Siemens' gas furnace were 

 here first tried on pottery. When in 1869 

 the site of this pottery was required by the 

 Metropolitan Board of Works for improve- 

 ments Mr. Cliff removed his factory to Run- 

 corn, and in 1878 was still directing it. 



Mr. Jewett states that this pottery was 

 originally established for the manufacture of 

 common red ware, but that after a time Mr. 

 Green added a little salt-glazed ware, and 

 then as the double-glazed ware gained favour, 

 made this latter his principal business and 

 abandoned entirely the red ware. Lysons 

 mentions in 181 1 only one red ware pottery 

 in Lambeth, which then belonged to H. Bing- 

 ham, so that Green must already at that date 

 have given up his first speciality. In 1850 

 the works employed about seventy persons 

 and consumed annually 1,000 tons of clay, 

 100 loads of sand, 20 tons of burnt flint 

 and Cornwall stone, 12 tons of salt, and 

 800 tons of coal. The business was then 

 estimated to be about three times as great 

 as it had been in the time of its founder, 

 and it is said that the unusual proportion 

 of more than half its productions was in- 

 tended for export. Amongst the principal 

 articles produced here were drain pipes, 

 chemical stoneware and filters.' 



Fore Street. — Lysons, as previously 

 mentioned, notices a pottery in Lambeth 

 belonging to one Waters. This no doubt 

 was the Richard Waters of Fore Street in 

 that parish, who in 1 8 1 1 took out a patent 

 for a ' new method of manufacturing pottery 

 ware embracing improvements in various 

 branches of that manufacture and by the pro- 

 cesses employed in which, large figures, 

 statues, ornaments, armorial bearings and the 

 like, duly coloured and burnt in, may likewise 

 be fabricated, also fine stone mortars and 

 pestles, cisterns, coffins, spiral pipes or worms 

 for distillers and tiles with a hook on the back 

 instead of a knob or button.' * The chief 

 feature of this new method was the adoption 



1 Brayley and Britten, Hist, of Surrey, v. App. 

 38 ; Jewett, op. cit. i. 151. 



• Close, 51 Geo. III. pt. 1 1, No. 4. 



of a process which has now become very 

 general in the manufacture of a certain class 

 of earthenware articles. The clay instead of 

 being thrown and moulded on the wheel was 

 first made into sheets and applied upon moulds, 

 and was then finished by beating or pressure 

 or by turning while in a revolving state. The 

 specification mentions delft ware pots and 

 other articles which were to be compressed 

 between the moulds in the manner described, 

 and also ' Welsh ware,' in the making or 

 clouding of which the patentee used a number 

 of pipes instead of one for the distribution of 

 the colour. No evidence is forthcoming as 

 to the extent of these works. They appear 

 to have been discontinued about the year 

 1820. 



The Lambeth Pottery of Messrs. Doul- 

 ton & Co. Ltd.^ — Of this firm it may 

 at the outset be said that did no others 

 exist for the manufacture of earthenware 

 within the limits of the area of our present 

 inquiry, the claims of Surrey to be at this day 

 an important centre of the industry would be 

 indisputable. That there are no others is of 

 course far from being the case. But to the 

 general public the mention of the modern 

 Surrey industry must first and foremost re- 

 call the name of Doulton. And deservedly 

 so ; for, starting from small beginnings, the 

 present vast extent of the Lambeth works 

 of this firm, not to speak of its various 

 ramifications in other parts of the kingdom, 

 and in Scotland and France, and the world- 

 wide celebrity of its productions judged by 

 the criteria alike of utility and of beauty, 

 have made it a healthy object lesson to all 

 industrial firms of what may be attained by 

 the exercise of a singularly inventive genius 

 allied with a mind ever alert to the grow- 

 ing needs of the hour and adoptive of every 

 improvement that can facilitate or perfect 

 the work it has conceived. 



In respect of what has been said here of 

 Dwight's establishment of his stoneware 

 works at Fulham it is interesting to note that 

 the founder of the firm which was prac- 

 tically to re-invent and perfect English stone- 

 ware as it exists to-day was himself an 

 apprentice at Fulham. It was after he had 

 served his term at these works that Mr. John 

 Doulton in 1 8 1 5 established in conjunction 



' The following account of Messrs. Doultons' 

 is compiled chiefly from information supplied by 

 the present company and printed in its own 

 small handbook ; notices of the works at different 

 stages of their existence are taken from Brayley 

 and Britton, Hiit. of Surrey, v. App. 38, and Jewett, 

 Ceramic Art, i. 144 seq. 



288 



