MINTON, TILES AND PORCELAIN.
While the Copelands have continued to perfect the old Spode china,
their rivals, Mintons, have tried several new fields—tiles, majolica,
pâte-sur-pâte. Herbert Minton (1793-1858)[190] and an elder brother
joined their father’s firm in 1817, and, after his father and brother
retired, he took Robert Boyle as a partner in these works at Stoke. Here
in 1828 Herbert Minton first turned his attention towards producing
tiles.[191] In 1830 Samuel Wright of Shelton patented a process for
making encaustic tiles in the manner of the old Cistercian monks. The
patterns were pressed in hollows into the tiles, the hollows were filled
up with different coloured slip clays, and then the face was all cut
level and flush. This patent was bought up by Minton and Boyle, and after
great difficulties the first successful encaustic tiles were made in
1836.[192]
But it was the patent of Richard Prosser of Birmingham in 1840 which
gave us the tile industry of the present day. He compressed clay dust
between metal dies, and made the dry dust solid under the pressure of a
differential screw. The process was intended at first for making buttons,
door-knobs, etc., and it was for these purposes that Minton immediately
bought the patent. J. M. Blashfield, who had already had experience
in making mosaic pavements, saw the value of the machine for making
tiles, and developed this line so effectively that by 1842 no less than
sixty-two presses were at work making white glazed dust tiles.[193]
Herbert Minton took his wife’s nephew, Michael Daintry Hollins, into
partnership in 1841 to look after the tile branch.[194]
Tiles—dust and encaustic—were the first of Minton’s improvements. The
next change, due in some degree at least to Minton, was a general
improvement in taste. The financial success of common blue printed ware
had done away with any inducement to improve ornamental ware. The
brilliant natural art of Whieldon had been forgotten; the classic style
of Wedgwood fell out of favour under the Regency; and instead we find
the gaudy decoration of old shapes by artists ever more mechanical and
less artistic. As M. Solon has said: “Worse and worse became the shapes
and models; lower and lower sank the work of the decorators; nor could
this deplorable state of things be altered by the inspiring study of fine
works of art. The Potteries were situated very far from the artistic
centre; good examples and good advice were equally wanting. It is not to
be denied that all that remains of the most pretentious examples of the
pottery of that period (1800-1850) bears the stamp of an unmitigated bad
taste.”[195] Some second-rate china painter from Worcester or Derby came
over to the Potteries to direct workmen and was called an artist. The
modest cream colour was embossed and gilded; the white earthenware was
entirely covered with badly engraved blue printing; and the porcelain
pieces of importance were decorated in the manner which one now
associates with the mantelpiece of the cheap lodging house.
Gradually this has been changed. The exhibitions of 1849 in Birmingham,
of 1851, 1862, and 1871 in London, and of 1867 in Paris, induced healthy
competition in excellence as an alternative to competition in cheapness
and wage cutting. The public museums of Hanley, Stoke and Tunstall came
later, but the Museum of Practical Geology, opened in 1851, and the South
Kensington Museum, opened in 1857, helped to raise taste. Above all the
Wedgwood Institute at Burslem, opened in 1865 under the fostering care
of Thos. Hulme and William Woodall, M.P., with its admirable classes for
students in applied art, has given a certain artistic training to the
designer, decorator and moulder. But much credit also must be given to
Herbert Minton for bringing over to Staffordshire the first of a series
of French artists who have added extraordinarily to the ornamental value
of Staffordshire ware.
M. Leon Arnoux (1816-1902) was engaged in 1849 by Messrs Minton, and
became thenceforth the art manager of the works. He improved the
decoration of their porcelain and the whiteness of its body, but his
chief claim to notice rests on his “majolica” and his imitation of the
old Pallissy, or Henri II, ware. For 30 years nothing was more popular
than Minton’s majolica, whether for ornamental ware, tiles or façades.
Arnoux was followed by such artists as Jeanest, Lessore, Protat,[196]
and in 1870 by Mons. M. L. Solon, whose special work—pâte-sur-pâte
decoration—still holds the public taste and deserves to become classical.
In this process white slip clay-paste is painted on to a dark clay body,
and the varying thickness and transparency of the layers of paint produce
an effect which differs completely from either plain enamelling or the
high relief of jasper. At the same time it lends itself to the individual
taste of the artist and can never become merely mechanical.
When Herbert Minton died in 1858 his firm employed 1500 workpeople,[197]
a number which has never been exceeded by any ornamental factory before
or since. His two nephews, M. D. Hollins and Colin Minton Campbell
(1827-1885)—the latter had become a partner in 1849—carried on the
business jointly under the title of Herbert Minton & Co. for china and
earthenware, and Minton, Hollins & Co. for tiles. In 1863 they were
joined for a few years by another partner, Robert Minton Taylor, and on
his leaving in 1868 Hollins and Campbell divided the business between
them. Hollins took the tiles, and Campbell the main factory. One of
the conditions of the division was that Campbell had to take over the
stock of moulds at a valuation. It is said that they were valued at the
unexpected and extraordinary figure of £30,000, the compulsory payment
of which dissolved the friendship as well as the partnership of the
two cousins. It may have been the recollection of this heavy grievance
that induced Campbell in 1871 to start the Campbell Tile Co., a serious
competitor for Minton, Hollins & Co., and the progenitor of many lawsuits.
Colin Minton Campbell was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1869, Chairman
of the North Stafford Railway, and Conservative Member of Parliament for
North Staffs 1874-80. He died in 1885, and his statue stands in the High
Street of Stoke. The Minton Works are now the property of his son John
Campbell of Woodseat, but he takes no share in the business, which is
managed by Mr J. Robinson. Another John Campbell owns and manages the
Campbell Tile Co. in Stoke.
As for the rival nephew and potter, Michael Hollins, he built in 1870 the
modern factory of Minton, Hollins & Co. in Shelton Old Road, Stoke, and
continued till his death in 1898 to make the best encaustic and glazed
dust tiles. The factory, employing some 400 workers, is now carried
on, but under far keener competition, by his grandson, Michael Daintry
Hollins.
Another important tile factory is that of T. & R. Boote in Burslem.
This firm was founded in 1842 by Thomas Latham Boote and Richard Boote
at the “Central Pottery” in Burslem. About 1850 they bought several old
pot-banks, put up their present “Waterloo Potteries” in Waterloo Road,
and started to make tiles. Mr T. L. Boote retired in 1879, Mr. R. Boote
died in 1891, and the works are now carried on by the sons of the former,
Richard L. and Charles E. Boote.[198]
The British manufacture of tiles is not so entirely localized in North
Staffordshire as is that of china and earthenware, but 6 out of the 17
largest English firms have their works here. Such are, beside those
already mentioned, G. Woolliscroft and Sons and the Porcelain Tile Co.,
both of Hanley, Henry Richards Tile Co., of Tunstall, and the Malkin Tile
Co. of Burslem.[199]