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No.58 January 2004 | Contex HOME

LECTURE REPORT

London's pots from Alfred to Victoria
David Lewis 

Last September we were particularly pleased to be able to welcome as our speaker Jacqueline Pearce, ceramics expert from the Museum of London (MoLSS).  Jacqueline is already well known to us for the help she and her colleagues have kindly given the Society on ceramic projects associated with our Thames Foreshore work.  The lecture gained a good few converts to the ceramic scene, as we were taken on a fascinating and visually rich tour of some 1,000 years of London¹s ceramic history.  And it soon became apparent that, along with the pots, we were also exploring London¹s economic and social development, trade, fashions, eating and drinking habits and other such facets of society.

Many areas of this diverse history are currently being re-written by archaeology.  For example, the rich collections in the  Museum  of  London  and  the LAARC of largely intact medieval wares were recovered mostly from building works in the 19th and early 20th centuries without any firm contexts.  In more recent years, however, controlled archaeological excavation, particularly in the 1970s on the north Thames foreshore, has produced an extensive body of ceramic material which, although more fragmentary, has the advantage of very firm archaeological contexts.   This has enabled a much more precise dating framework to be established for medieval pottery, accurate to within about 30 years.  

To return to our tour, however, we began appropriately with the re-occupation of the City of London by King Alfred.  Pottery now re-appears for the first time since the abandonment of Roman London in the 5th century AD.  These Anglo-Saxon wares were unglazed and handmade on a turntable.  The range of shapes was fairly limited - mostly food containers - although a popular form was the bowl made of grey firing clay tempered with shell.  The culinary repertoire may have been less developed at that time and other easier-to-use materials were available, such as horn, wood and leather for drinking vessels.

The Norman Conquest brought significant changes in ceramics -some a result of Norman drinking habits.  The use of lead glaze, first seen under the early Roman Empire was taken over by Byzantium and spread into Europe.  By the 11th century, we find in London lead glazed wares from Belgium, made on the potters wheel.  These were associated with the wine trade.  This in turn led to local products ­ a London type ware using glaze.  No kilns have so far been found here.  By the 12th century copies of wares from Northern France occur in red London clay and wares become more exuberant.

The Middle Ages continued the earthenware traditions with finer clays, potting techniques and use of glazes.  Among the main types of pottery in use in London were the so-called Surrey White Wares.  Coming from a number of sources in Surrey along the Surrey/Hampshire border, they are of a fine white-firing sandy earthenware covered in whole or part with a yellow, brown or green lead glaze.  The earliest, found on the waterfront, date to 1240, and they continue until the 16th century.  The most popular form was the jug, which is found in quantity, reflecting a growth in population, or more particularly the drinking population.  There are fine examples, pear shaped and elaborately decorated with clay strips and pellets; others in anthropomorphic form with faces; and an interesting type based on a metal shape.  Face jugs found at Ingatestone in Essex show a French influence.  Another significant group used in London is Santonge Ware, imported from an area in South Western France well known for its fine ceramics.  Wares are very light, thinly potted and of the finest quality with polychrome decoration ­ evidence of a thriving trade in luxury goods.  Later, into the 14th and 15th centuries, medieval wares become plainer but broaden their range of shapes to include for example, the lobed cup.  By the 16th century, with ever changing table manners, a wider variety of forms continued to develop with drinking cups alongside jugs, glazed in "Tudor Green".  These were used in Inns and it is recorded that gentlemen were fined for breakages.

As we come into the period of post-medieval ceramics, we have the benefit of far more numerous sources for dating, such as documentary evidence and paintings, particularly Dutch genre, interior and still life scenes.  And we now occasionally find commemorative and other wares inscribed with dates.    In the late 16th and 17th centuries another group of earthenware came to flourish as a major source of attractive domestic pottery for London and the South of England.  These are known as "Border Wares" because they developed in the Farnham area from the long-standing medieval industry on the Hampshire and West Surrey border.  The constituent clay fired to an attractive white or buff and was then covered in a yellow, green, olive or brown lead glaze.  A very wide range of forms includes candlesticks, costrels (carrying flasks) and mugs.   Unusual shapes are the bed-pan (with non-spill rim!), "chicken feeder" and fuming pot ­ a pierced container for herbs, used against the plague.  An example is even known of a "Bellarmine" jug copied in this type of ware.

Wares made from red-fired clays gained renewed popularity in the 16th century, probably for commercial reasons, availability of clay, etc.  New shapes appear such as watering cans.  By the mid 17th century, these "Red Wares" began to dominate the London markets and many types of domestic pottery were produced along with heavy duty cooking vessels and forms for industrial purposes.  An important assemblage of "Red wares" was excavated at Uxbridge.  Red wares continued to be made in the London area well into the 19th century

Even if fairly coarse, red wares could be enhanced by covering in part or whole with fine slip (liquid clay) before being finished off with the usual lead glaze.  A number of early bowls have been recovered in London with simple white slip decoration, some having traces of burnt debris inside.  A Dutch painting shows one example containing hot embers for use as a pipe lighter.   Slip can be used in a great variety of ways, including trailing to create often quite striking linear and plant patterns, in some cases with initials and dates.  Many examples of orange-bodied slipwares have been found in London and hence are known as "Metropolitan Ware".  They were made at Harlow in Essex and elsewhere and the earliest example we have is dated 1630.  They are especially useful for establishing a chronological framework. 

IMPORTS

The great expansion of trade from the later 16th century led to a variety of new ceramic types coming into London from abroad.  From Germany there came stonewares.  Examples similar to pieces found in London can be seen in the painting "The Peasants Dance" by Pieter Breughel the Elder ­ dated to c1567.  Other significant imports were the ubiquitous Bartman face-mask ale jugs from Cologne.  Earlier masks were in classic style whereas later in the 17th century they degenerated into more grotesque representations and, so it is said, acquired the name "Bellarmines" after Cardinal Bellarmine 1542-1621.

Tin glazed earthenware was another major import range.  The use of tin oxide in lead glaze developed in the Near East to give a fine opaque surface on even fairly coarse earthenware.  Techniques spread into Europe through Islamic Spain and Italy.  A variety of these wares were coming into London in the 16th century - Majolica from Italy, including brightly painted wares from Montelupo near Florence and the celebrated copper lustrewares from Spain.  Holland was another source for tin-glaze (Delftware) as well as for potters, who came to work in London.  From Portugal we have examples of a micaceous ware that is found on Armada wrecks.

An even more exotic and rare material was porcelain, which began to arrive from China in association with the tea trade and the East India Company in the 17th century.  One example has been excavated of Japanese porcelain - a dish of the later 17th century from Spital Square ­ a reminder of how European (particularly Dutch) traders transferred their attentions for a time to Japan after the fall of the Ming Dynasty in China in 1644.  More unexpected is the find of a mid-17th century dish from South Iran on the Lloyd¹s Register site.  Regular trade links with Iran are not known at this time and its ceramics were presumably acquired in the course of general trading around the Mediterranean. 

Interestingly, for an impression of the typical day-to-day wares being used in London in 17th century, we can look to assemblages from Jamestown in America, where the colonists equipped their homes with goods brought in directly from the London markets.

This was the period when, in addition to its role as a major distribution centre, London became a major centre of ceramic manufacture.

In London delftware (tin-glaze) was first made at Aldgate in 1571, some 30 years before it was produced at Delft.   From the 17th century, delftware potteries were established at Southwark.  Early London delftware often copied late Ming Chinese export porcelain particularly of the Wan-Li Emperor (1573-1619) with motifs such as the "Bird on a rock".  A frequently found shape was the "albarello" or cylindrical jar used for holding drugs, although in one instance a Dutch painting shows one being used as a paint pot.  By the 18th century, Lambeth became an important area for production with fine European figure and landscape decoration in blue and white and polychrome patterns.  Much archaeological research is currently taking place on the tin-glaze industries and production sites.  Unfortunately, tin glaze is prone to chipping and flaking, and competition from more durable wares (notably creamware) led to the decline of the industry later in the 18th century.  The last commercial production is recorded at Mortlake in 1820.

English stoneware was first produced successfully in Fulham by John Dwight from 1671.  His commercial wares featured bottles, Bellarmines and mugs for ale but he soon progressed to far more sophisticated products.  In the 18th century, much stoneware was produced in the Lambeth and Vauxhall areas.  Doulton of Lambeth was the famous manufacturer of the 19th century. 

Porcelain manufacture began in England around 1745 at Chelsea and Bow, and London became a leading production centre in the 18th century.  In recent years archaeology has helped to reveal further "lost" factory sites and their products at Limehouse, Vauxhall and Isleworth.  This has transformed our ideas of the London industry.

From the middle of the 18th century, major improvements in lead glazes and light earthenware bodies took place in the Staffordshire potteries, particularly under the auspices of Josiah Wedgwood.  The resultant "creamware" was lighter than porcelain, rivalled it in decoration, but was much cheaper, and became the most successful pottery made in England.  The Stoke on Trent area gradually took over as the leading centre of ceramic production in England.

With increasing industrialisation from the 1830s, an enormous output of all types of useful and ornamental wares was achieved in potteries around England.  A number of ceramic bodies were now developed to new technological heights along with numerous important decorative techniques such as transfer printing.

We had already seen the importance of archaeological finds of large assemblages in that they give a snapshot of the different types of wares in fashion or out of fashion (if they had been dumped) at a given time.  For the later 18th century, a particularly important assemblage was found at Crosswall, EC3 (not far from Fenchurch Street Station and St Olave¹s) where  a  variety  of Teapot manufactured in Lambeth, 1751-64 utilitarian wares had been disposed of from stoneware and creamware to Chinese porcelain, which by this time was becoming less rare ­ relatively speaking.   Norfolk House in Lambeth was a site where an enormous dump dating to about 1860 was excavated.  It showed the great varieties of wares in use at this period and how they were interrelated ­ information that, even for such recent times, would only be recorded by archaeology.