MEXBOROUGH POTTERY. 77 
canal side, about half way between the other Mexborough Pottery 
and the Don Pottery. 
The mark used, impressed in capitals in the ware, was 
SOWTER & CO. 
MEXBRO. 
We have a teapot, in a pretty blue transfer, having a swan for a 
knob on the top of the lid, also a well potted oval dish ornamented 
with a variety of the popular “Willow” pattern in a pretty shade 
of light blue and having large perforations along the outside. 
MEXBOROUGH. 
ROCK POTTERY or MEXBRO’ POTTERY. 
These works, at first very small, were established for the manu¬ 
facture of brown and yellow wares and common red garden pots, 
by a man named Beevers, who, with a partner named Ford, carried 
on the business for some years. The workrooms at this time were 
built close up to the natural rock, which indeed formed the back 
wall of the pottery, and from this circumstance the place was 
known as the “ Rock Pottery.” 
The works next passed into the hands of Messrs. Reed and 
Taylor, who owned the works at Ferrybridge. 
In 1839 the pottery passed entirely into the hands of Mr. James 
Reed, who carried it on till 1849, when he was succeeded by his 
son Mr. John Reed, who altered the name from the “ Rock ” to 
the “ Mexbro’ ” Pottery, but amongst the inhabitants it always 
was and is known as the “ Rock Pottery.” John Reed carried on 
the work till his death in January, 1870, and his executors under 
the management of Mr. C. Bullock till 1873, when it was pur¬ 
chased by Messrs. Sydney Woolf and Co., owners of the Old 
Ferrybridge Pottery and of the Australian Pottery, Ferrybridge, 
and managed by Mr. Bowman Heald, to whom I am indebted for 
much information about this and other potteries in the district. 
This firm worked the concern and did an extensive trade during 
the following ten years, but at the end of 1883 their name dis¬ 
appeared from the list of Yorkshire earthenware manufacturers, 
and the two Ferrybridge Potteries passed into other hands. Mr. 
Bowman Heald was manager here from 1873 t° the time of the 
closing down of the works in 1883. 
The plant of the Rock Pottery, including engravings, moulds, 
models, stock-in-trade, etc., were disposed of to a Swinton glass 
