Family China

While traversing the Midlands, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a conurbation of six towns in Staffordshire that during the 19th century became the global epicenter of ceramics production. Household names like Wedgewood, Royal Doulton, Minton, Spode, etc. were born here, some as early as the mid-1700s. The ceramics industry drove the local economies of Stoke-on-Trent until about the 1960s, when several of the manufacturers folded, consolidated, or moved production to Asia. In Hanley, one of the six towns of 'Stoke', we visited the Museum of the Potteries, a sad old building dating from probably the late 1970s that contains the relics of Stoke's faded industrial glory: exhibits telling the story of area's history of ceramics production, mainly with wall plaques and vitrines full of the ceramics themselves. I get a bit nostalgic in dusty old museums that could use a few more visitors and maybe a new exhibit now and then. At the Museum of the Potteries, I experienced this special nostalgia but also a quickening of personal nostalgia when I realized that I might stumble upon some familiar china patterns in the vitrines: Nana's Spode Buttercup dinner plates, or Granny's Wedgewood demitasses. I peered eagerly into each vitrine, and while I didn't find Nana's Spode or Wedgewood that exactly resembled Granny's, I was rewarded with a little revelation when I found a vitrine of Parianware sculptures and realized that this was the origin of Granny's 'marble' statuette of a bathing Venus, one of the Stancliff family heirlooms. According to the wall plaque accompanying the vitrine,

"Parian porcelain was developed during the early Victorian period for the manufacture of statuary, busts, and other ornamental items in imitation of marble sculpture. The name Parian was introduced by Minton, after the white marble form the Greek Island of Paros...A number of manufacturers in Staffordshire and Worcester began to make Parian and at the Great Exhibition of 1851 twenty firms exhibited wares, notable Minton and Copeland... Portrait busts, classical figures, and the work of well-known sculptors were the most popular items during the mid-19th century..."

I was really excited to learn about Parianware because it suddenly shed light on the kind of Vicorian family and culture that Granny came from: one where beauty for its own sake was highly valued, and yet made available on a mass scale through new industrial technologies.

I was disappointed not to see Nana's Spode on display at the Museum of the Potteries, but with a little help from the Internet after the fact, I found that the Buttercup pattern was first introduced by Spode around 1885, and finally discontinued in the 1990s! Apparently it was marketed in the United States before 1939. Now I need to ask Deborah or Tory if they remember the specific origins of Nana's Spode! Did Nana buy it at Macy's? Or was it in her family for generations?

Following are some pictures I took of pieces in the Museum of the Potteries: some Wedgewood and Parianware, for Granny, and then pieces that just caught my fancy. I also included some internet images of "bottle kilns" in Stoke (where the ceramics were fired), and the Buttercup Spode pattern.