INDUSTRIES 



with Mr. John Watts a small pottery in 

 Vauxhall Walk. In 1826 the two removed 

 to High Street, Lambeth, and here for many 

 years until the death of Mr. Watts in 1858 

 the establishment was carried on under the 

 style of Doulton & Watts. 



Several of Mr. Doulton's sons had already 

 become engaged in the business of the firm, 

 and among them Mr. Henry Doulton, who 

 at the age of fifteen had commenced work in 

 the factory at the potter's wheel. He it is 

 to whose energy and enterprise and the 

 fertility of whose inventive powers is to be 

 attributed the great progress which the Lam- 

 beth pottery made during the second half of 

 the last century. The application by him of 

 steam for driving the potters' wheels was one 

 of the firstfruits of his genius. This he 

 brought into use some ten years before it was 

 generally applied in the trade. 



The first important impulse to the Lam- 

 beth potteries was given about the middle of 

 the nineteenth century by the growing de- 

 mand that arose, out of the application of 

 chemistry to manufactures, for chemical ves- 

 sels of stoneware capable of resisting acids. 

 Up to that time about eight gallons was the 

 limit of size, but it is now possible to produce 

 vessels of several hundred gallons capacity. 



But the opportunity by the seizure of which 

 exactly at the right moment Mr. Henry 

 Doulton was to raise his firm to the great 

 position it now holds was found in the 

 agitation for sanitary reform which is one of 

 the most distinctive characteristics of the 

 social history of this country during the 

 latter half of the last century. In 1846 he 

 commenced the manufacture of stoneware 

 pipes for the sewage of towns and the drain- 

 ing of houses, and it was not long before the 

 pioneers of sanitary science had their atten- 

 tion called through the new invention to the 

 unsatisfactory nature of the old flat bottom 

 brick drains with their gaping joints. The 

 great demand that arose for the new pipes led 

 to the erection of a special factory near 

 Lambeth Palace of which Mr. Henry Doul- 

 ton took the sole management and direction. 

 The demand still increasing, especially in 

 some of the most important provincial towns, 

 it was found necessary to start works for the 

 same purpose at Rowley Regis near Dudley. 

 These latter are now the largest drain-pipe 

 works in the world, turning out over thirteen 

 miles per week. 



Afterwards additional works were required 

 at Smethwick, and at the present time 

 Messrs. Doulton make at their various works 

 in London, Staffordshire, and Lancashire c 

 about thirty miles of pipes weekly, involving 



II 289 



a consumption of clay for these and other 

 articles of about two thousand tons per week 

 and of coal about one thousand seven hun- 

 dred tons during the same period. 



In addition to pipes the use of pottery has 

 extended to ware of all kinds for sanitary 

 purposes, and the new applications which 

 have been introduced from the Lambeth 

 works have added in no small degree to the 

 use of pottery material for this purpose. An 

 interesting utilization of pottery of com- 

 paratively recent date is in the electrical 

 industry. Insulators for overhead wires had 

 been in use for some years, but the necessity 

 of carrying electric mains underground led 

 to the introduction of stoneware conduits, 

 which are now made in great quantities. 



So far we have confined our attention to 

 the more strictly utilitarian productions of 

 this firm. On these were laid the founda- 

 tions of its prosperity. But the development 

 of its artistic pottery forms although a later 

 yet perhaps a more interesting chapter in its 

 history, and has made the name of Doulton 

 far more generally known than otherwise it 

 might have been. 



Decorative stoneware of a sort had always 

 been made at these works. Among the first 

 efforts were the well-known ' Toby Jugs,' 

 with their quaint representations of topers 

 with foaming tankards, impossible windmills, 

 huntsmen, stags and dogs. These are still 

 made, and were for some time the typical art 

 work of the Lambeth and other London pot- 

 teries. Jugs also commemorative of import- 

 ant events and persons were occasionally 

 turned out, such as the ' Nelson ' and the 

 ' Wellington ' jugs and bottles, and those pro- 

 duced at the time of the passing of the Re- 

 form Act of 1832. 



But the first attempts of Henry Doulton 

 to connect art workmanship with the pre- 

 viously rougher productions of domestic use 

 date no further back than the Paris Exhibi- 

 tion of 1867. Salt glazing as applied to 

 decorative pottery had then practically died 

 out in England. No traditions remained ; 

 the way was quite open for a fresh start. 

 To some extent, according to Professor 

 Church, the new class of pottery now intro- 

 duced was a revival of an old industry, and 

 may be said to have been founded upon the 

 old German stonewares. But the system 

 adopted by Henry Doulton of giving his 

 highly trained designers the freest possible 

 hand in the execution of their conceptions 

 has won for the art productions of his firm a 

 distinction and an originality entirely their 

 own. 



The vases and jugs that were first pro- 



37 



