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MINTONS

THE

Pottery and Glass Journal.

Trades'

A Monthly Review of the Pottery, Glass and Decorative Trades. Single copy price 6d., by post 7d. Annual Subscription, payable in advance, post free, to any part of the United Kingdom, 6; to any other part of the world except India, 7; to India, 8.

MARCH, 1879.

GREAT FIRMS AND GREAT MEN.

No. III.-W. T. COPELAND & SONS. The annals of this celebrated firm date back to the year 1770, when Josiah Spode took the works, which had been previously worked by the Turners of Stoke, and commenced the manufacture of earthenware in conjunction with a tea traveller of the name of William Copeland. It will not be necessary for us to give more than just a resume of the earlier history of this firm, since there are but few of our readers who are not familiar with every detail almost as household words. At first William Copeland was only a traveller on commission, but he was soon taken into partnership, and managed the London business, first at Fore-street and then in a large establishment in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The concern in every sense flourished remarkably until the death of Josiah Spode the elder, when his

son came into partnership and adopted his father's place as manager of the manufactory. In 1800 Spode commenced to manufacture porcelain and china, and some five years afterwards he introduced that hard and durable material, ironstone-an introduction which has contributed largely to the celebrity and wealth of Messrs. Copeland. The title of the firm has undergone many variations, which show very clearly the different partnerships which were entered into at various times. First Josiah Spode, then Spode and Copeland, then Spode, Son and Copeland, Spode and Copeland again, and Spode, Copeland and Son. In 1829 Mr. Copeland, sen., died, and in 1833 Alderman William Taylor Copeland bought up the whole concern, and took a Mr. Garrett into partnership the style of the firm standing until 1847 Copeland and Garrett, when this arrangement was dissolved, and in 1867 Mr. W. T. Copeland taking his four sons into partnership the present designation of W. T. Copeland and Sons was adopted. From this it will be seen that the originator and presiding genius of the firm was undoubtedly W. T. Copeland. This gentleman was Lord Mayor of London in 1835, and was a Member of Parliament for Coleraine from 1828 to 1832, and for Stoke-on-Trent from 1837 to 1852, and from 1857 to 1865. Mr. Copeland died in 1868.

In 1866 Messrs. Copelands manufactured a dessert service for the Prince of which was in 198 pieces, and which Mr. Jewett affirms to be one of the greatest triumphs of ceramic art yet attempted. The first artists of the day devoted their talents

to the production of this celebrated work, amongst whom we may mention Härten, Durham, R.A., F. Miller, and George Halse, a gentleman whose artistic productions form the subject of our illustration this month.

The firm of Copeland is celebrated for originality. Not only may the introduction of ironstone be attributed to it, but that of the ivory-body so much in fashion just now, and also several new and brilliant colours, such as the cerulean blue, Sardinian green, and the most magnificent coral red and vermilion yet produced. These latter colours are utilised mostly in the production of those wonderfully jewelled pieces of ware which are the subject of comment and admiration to every connoisseur of pottery. The jewellery of these objects is so beautiful that we have seen many pieces which had the appearance of real jewellery set with turquoise, emerald, coral, and pearl, and arranged with a precision which could not be surpassed by the worker in gold or silver. commonly believed that one of the present Mr. Copelands has a great deal to do with the production of these colours from a chemical point of view. However this may be, it is an established fact that in point of colour Messrs. Copelands reign supreme amongst not only the potters of Staffordshire but of the world.

It is

Mr. Abraham, who is the art director and manager, was educated at Antwerp and Paris, and is a most successful follower of the School of Etty. "The softness of touch, the purity and delicacy of feeling, the sunny mellowness of tone, as well as chasteness of design and

correctness of drawing, shew him to be a thorough artist, and place him in the first rank amongst the toilers in this most artistic of industries." In almost these words Mr. Jewitt sums him up, and we are satisfied that his personal friendship has had no hand in producing a bias in his judgment or in overrating his opinion. Previous to his connection with Copelands, Mr. Abraham was in the employment of W. Rose and Sons, of Coalport, but it is whilst with Copelands that he has produced his more celebrated works and formed his higher reputation.

To Messrs. Copelands we owe it that for a few shillings the man of modest means, but of cultivated taste, is enabled to possess an imperishable reproduction, on a reduced scale, of the choicest examples left to us of Greek or Roman art, luxuries which hitherto had been the exclusive privilege of the wealthy. He may adorn his home with a Clytie, an Apollo, an Ajax, a Venus, or any masterpiece of the age of Pericles, which, may be, he has been compelled to look upon from afar, and to reverently view as a thing of unattainable beauty. We refer to the introduction and perfection of the manufacture of parian, the honour of which is certainly attributable to this firm, it being, in fact, a development of the old Derby biscuit ware; it is said to have been a suggestion of the sculptor Gibson, but it must have necessitated an innumerable quantity of experiments to have produced anything like so fine and soft a body as Messrs. Copelands now manufacture. In the month of October last year we published a photographic representation of the Venus of Milo, as manufactured in this material, and this month we illustrate a very exquisite pair of pastoral figures, by George Halse, entitled, "The Trysting Tree." The girl, Rosetta, has evidently confided, with a beating heart, a response to her lover's vows, while Reuben, the favoured youth, presently bounding to the appointed spot, espies the epistle in which his hopes are centred. The original marbles are in the possession of John Snelgrove, Esq., of Holland Park, London. Our illustration will give our readers a very just idea of the

manner of treatment, and will enable them to appreciate the poetry of the conception. It would not be graceful in us to close this notice without mentioning Mr R. T. Abraham, the son of the art director, who, contrary to the generally accepted idea of descent, inherits a great portion of his father's talent; and Mr. Hürten, whose treatment of flower subjects has rendered Copelands celebrated in this branch of enamel painting. As at present constituted, the firm of Copelands shows no signs of decay, and we have no doubt but

received from Mr. G. Wedgwood, but which we regret our space did not permit us to publish last month, may be read with advantage by some of the advocates of free trade :SIR,-Allow me to reply to a letter from "An English Traveller," dated Rome, December 17, in a recent issue of The Times, in which he complains of the difficulty of obtaining articles of genuine British manufacture in Italy, and suggests that we are losing our former enterprise, or there would be a shop for the sale of our manufactures in every large town in Italy. Your correspondent looks on the question from the point of view of the disappointed conLet me state the case of the struggling manufacturer, baffled continually by the difficulty of competing in markets protected by heavy tariffs. As a member of a firm that for many years has supplied Italy with earthenware, I can speak with the authority of experience as to one article of general use. English earthenware is cheap and suited to the Italian market, where high-priced articles find few purchasers, but the expenses of delivering it to that market, amounting to from 50 to 80 per cent. on the value of the goods, render them difficult of sale. These expenses consist of:

sumer.

1. Canal and sea freight and other expenses connected with the transit, amounting to from 30 to 45 per cent. on the value of the goods.

2. The duties imposed by the Italian Government, which accounts for the remaining 20 to 35 per cent. This duty, which is specific and not ad valorem, is levied on the gross weight of the packages, without any tare being allowed; the actual tare (or weight of the package without the ware) is, however, on an average, one-third of the gross weight. Thus for every 2 cwt. of ware entering Italy we have to pay duty on 3 cwt. From this disadvantage our munication with Italy are free, owing to the Continental competitors enjoying railway comfact that they are able to pack their goods in bulk in trucks and pay duty little more than on the net weight of the ware when unpacked at

destination.

Nor is this the worst that we have to contend with. The Italian Government propose to raise the duties 50 per cent. on their present rate, which intensify these disadvantages, and render adverse conditions practically impossible. a trade at present languishing under these

Nor can it be said that we have done nothing to try and obviate them. The North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce deputed me to lay these facts before the Roman Government, which I did in April last, with, however, very meagre results. Hopes were held out to me of a small allowance of tare being granted, but none that the contemplated increase of duty would not

before long be carried into effect.

This short account of the way in which Government restrictions affect one particular industry may supply to your correspondent and his letter, why British goods are not to be the public an answer to the question asked in obtained in Italy, except at exorbitant prices. It also shows what a suicidal course the Italian interests of its own people in driving away from Government is pursuing with regard to the its markets an article of commerce which for a century has proved itself to be suitable to their tastes and wants. Doubtless the absence of any other articles of commerce complained of by your correspondent may be accounted for in a similar way. It is in the hope that he may have the opportunity of bringing these facts ventured to address you.

with regard to the exportation of English earthenware to Italy, applies equally to almost every other English manufacture, to almost every other continental and foreign country, and even to a great extent to our colonies. It is but poor satisfaction to the English manufacturer who is thus shut out of all foreign markets, to be told that the system adopted by all other countries of imposing those prohibitive duties, whereby he is debarred from competing in foreign markets with foreign manufacturers is tantamount to the imposing of a tax on the inhabitants of those countries. We are glad to see that this important question will be brought before the House of Commons this session. Mr. David McIver the Member for Birkenhead, at a meeting held on the 10th of last month, of the members of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, said that:—

'Cheaper production and honest work were necessary before Great Britain could again compete successfully in the markets of the world; but even then our so-called free trade policy would, if continued, place us at a hopeless disadvantage. Adam Smith never taught unqualified free trade, neither did John Stuart Mill. Professor Fawcett at the present day justified the maintenance-for the benefit of India-of protective duties on British goods. But, speaking generally, free traders of the modern school put forward the monstrous doctrine that all mankind except themselves were fools. They assumed that they were the only true exponents of orthodox political economy, and that foreign nations and our Own colonies were lamentably ignorant, blind to their own interests, and lost in a kind of heathen darkness which it was their glorious mission to enlighten. (Laughter.) He (Mr. McIver) desired free trade as much as anybody-real free trade; and would himself in the House of Commons take a step in the right direction by proposing, if no one else did, a duty upon refined sugar, manufactured woollens and silks in such manner as would bring the whole question as regarded British manufactures generally to a practical issue. In so doing, he should not merely raise the question in the House of Commons but throughout the length and breadth of the land; and he had no doubt that at some not chamber believing more in the teaching of very distant period they would meet in that Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill than some of them now seemed to do." (Laughter.)

We trust this question, affecting as it does so seriously our manufactures, to which we are indebted for the wealth which enables us to rank as the first nation in the world, will receive that consideration which it undoubt edly deserves, and that Mr. McIver will obtain

the first rank of ceramic producers for many a long year yet.

FREE TRADE.

The following letter, which appeared in The Times, and which we sometime since

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
GODFREY WEDGWOOD.

Etruria, Staffordshire, Dec. 30.

Mr. Wedgwood practically points out how English earthenware manufacturers are shut out of the Italian markets, and what he says

of the House. We have been termed "a nation of shopkeepers," we must sadly lack the spirit possessed by our forefathers at the time this appellation was given us, if we are going to permit our customers to be forcibly taken away from us. It may be bad for our customers to be prevented from dealing with us, but it is much worse for us.