I'm back!
Thank you all for the most wonderful comments, thoughts, encouragement and prayers.
Blogging friends are the best and sure make my pacemaker surgery recovery time seem easier. Love reading your wonderful blogs!
Decided I would to share one of my treasured and cherished antiques with you, I think I was drawn to this one because of the floral design, it's intricate and fascinated me the minute I saw it, I had to have it. I'll also share some very interesting history about England Mason Ironstone Pottery that I found, I know you'll notice some very interesting and prominent names in it's wonderful history.
Presenting....
My Treasured Antique ~ My Mason Ironstone Bowl..
Ironstone is a type of pottery that was first manufactured in England in the early 1800s. The formula for ironstone was developed by potters who were looking to be able to produce an affordable alternative to porcelain, which had become very expensive to import. The process required the use of slag, flint, stone, cobalt, and clay ground together in certain proportions. The resulting product was very attractive, sturdy, and functional, and soon became very popular.
MASON’S A FAMILY OF POTTERS…. 1796-1856
It was love and luck that got Miles Mason started in the ceramics business. We know little of his
early life except that he was born in 1752 in Dent in the West Riding of Yorkshire. As a young
man he worked as a clerk for his Uncle Bailey of Frog Hall, Chigwell Row in London, who was
a stationer. By chance, his next door neighbor was Richard Farrar, a prosperous glass and
china merchant who sold mainly porcelain imported from China. Farrar’s daughter, Ruth,
was only nine when her father died in 1775. She inherited his vast estate, which included a
personal fortune in excess of $55,000. Seven years later, when she was 16, Miles married her,
and together they had four children, a daughter, Ann Ruth, and three sons William, George
Miles and Charles James.
****
Miles Mason then, began his career in ceramics as a retailer in his late father-in-law's business.
There he inevitably made contact with the Staffordshire master potters whose products he sold,
and it was not long before he became involved in the manufacturing side. His timing could
not have been better. The East India Company had always sold their imported porcelain
twice yearly auctions in London. In the late eighteenth century, these were dominated by the
“ring”, a consortium of dealers getting together to suppress prices. By not bidding against
each other, the dealers purchased the porcelain cheaply then ‘knocked it out’ to the highest
bidder within the ring. Due to this and to the effects of the Napoleonic wars upon trade and
the economy in 1791 the East India Company decided to dispense with the auction side of
its business.
***
This created a wonderful opportunity for English manufacturers to fill the gap and
increase the production of ceramics with an oriental appeal.In 1796 he entered into a
partnership with the experienced porcelain manufacturer Thomas Wolfe of Liverpool, and
then in the same year took another partnership with George Wolfe at the Victoria Works in
Lane Delph, producing fine earthenware. Miles thus assured himself of a continuous supply of
earthenware and porcelain for his retail business in London . Both of these partnerships ceased
in 1800 but Miles kept the Victoria Works for himself and started to produce his own porcelain
which continued until 1807. During this time he moved his family from London to a house
next door to the Victoria Works.
***
His business prospered and within three years Miles had moved to much larger premises,
it was in the Mivera Works that from1807 until 1813 Miles produced porcelain to a very high
standard and it was here with the assistance of his three sons he experimented on new clays
and produced an earthenware called Ironstone China.
Miles retired from the business in June 1813 when the business was taken over by his sons.
He retired to Liverpool and died there in 1822 having succeeded in a career that saw the
introduction of a product that would make the family name of Mason’s one of the most
important in the history of English Ceramics.
***
THE SONS,
William Mason, George Miles Mason & Charles James Mason (CJ)
Miles eldest son, William, had a short and not very successful career in the pottery industry
but very little is known about him. George, the second son, was a good businessman, and ran the
administrative side of the business until 1832 when he left the trade for a life as a country
gentleman and entered into politics.
Charles James Mason (CJ)
For pottery enthusiasts, however, by far the most important member of the family was the third
and youngest son, Charles James.(CJ) born in 1791, he was destined to become one of the
outstanding figures in the Staffordshire pottery industry. Today, when people speak of
“Ironstone” it is invariably Mason’s to which they refer and to CJ’s work in particular.
From a very early age he assisted his father in the factory experimenting with new clays,
he enjoyed the life and soon became a master-potter himself. Charles at only the age of 21
leap into the limelight when he registered the patent for Patent Ironstone China.
***
In 1815 Charles married Sarah Spode, who was the granddaughter of the first Josiah Spode
the founder of the famous potting family. She was a very shrewd business woman and
she encouraged her husband in all his new ventures and they remained happily married for
27 years. They had two children Florence Elizabeth Mason and Charles Spode Mason.
Sarah died in 1842 and was buried in the Mason’s family vault in Barlaston.
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