It’s the ace of Spode
Celebrating the history of one of Britain’s most innovative potteries
COLLECTORS look forward with anticipation to Art & Antiques for Everyone,
the UK’s largest and most prestigious fair outside London and in a major coup for the organisers, The Spode Society has chosen this spring’s event to stage an extensive exhibition of ceramics by Josiah Spode and his successors.
Running concurrently with the fair at the National Exhibition Centre Birmingham on April-2-5, the exhibition will include around 170 of the finest pieces ranging from the first Spode period 1770-1833, Copeland and Garrett 1833-1847 and the Copeland period from 1847 to the 20th century.
So why the excitement? Well, in 1970, the Royal Academy of Arts staged the exhibition “200 Years of Spode”. It was immensely popular attracting more than 18,000 visitors.
Visit any flea market, antiques fair or auction and almost any large blue and white dinner plate or meat dish you’ll find decorated with either an Italian blue and white scene or willow pattern Chinese garden, easily the most popular pieces of domestic porcelain in the history of British ceramics, was probably made by Spode.
So, it’s definitely worth learning more.
The business was founded by Josiah Spode (1733-1797) who was born in Fenton in the heart of the Staffordshire Potteries and apprenticed to one of the best known early potters, Thomas Whieldon, remaining until he was 21.
Whieldon’s endless curiosity and willingness to experiment had a profound impression on the young Spode. From there he worked in several partnerships until the 1760s, when he took a position as the head of works for Turner & Banks In Stoke-on-Trent.
With a mortgage of £500, Josiah was able to purchase that company’s old pottery works, founding the company in his own name in 1776. It would remain so until 2008. Spode was responsible for perfecting two extremely clever techniques that were crucial to the worldwide success of the English pottery industry: transfer printing in underglaze blue on fine earthenware and, in about 1790, developing an improved formula for fine bone china that was adopted generally by the industry.
In 1778, his son, Josiah Spode II, opened a warehouse in London where he soon found a growing demand for replacement pieces for Chinese porcelain services. Always a man with an eye for the market, Spode Snr began to experiment with underglaze printing on earthenware in order to produce these wares inexpensively and effectively.
Rivals Royal Worcester and Caughley had started transfer printing both underglaze and overglaze on porcelain in the 1750s, and from 1756 onwards, overglaze printing was also used on earthenware and stoneware.
Until Spode applied his ideas, underglazed, hot-press, printing was limited to the shades that could resist the temperature of the glaze firing, and a brilliant blue colour was the preferred option.
To upgrade this process from small tea wares to larger dinnerware required the invention of a more flexible transfer paper to move the designs from the copper plate to the body of the earthenware. This brought about the development of a glaze recipe that produced a perfect black-blue cobalt print.
Spode employed two of the most skilled pottery artists of their day: the engraver Thomas Lucas and printer James Richard, both having worked for the Caughley factory during the early experiments in glazes.
Joined by Thomas Minton, also Caughley-trained, Spode was able to introduce the signature blue printed earthenware to the market, perfecting it by 1784. The groundbreaking achievement redefined the British pottery industry.
Spode’s early patterns were copied or adapted from Chinese originals. His most famous was produced around 1790 when he took a popular Chinese design, Mandarin, and added a bridge with three figures and a fence from another Chinese design.
The famous willow pattern was born and went on to become the most popular underglaze blue pattern of all time. The next major step was the launch in 1816 of Spode’s Blue Italian range, with its floral chinoiserie border and rural Italian scene in shades and textures of cobalt blue, which has remained in production ever since.
By 1827, Spode had become one of the world’s leading manufacturers and Blue Italian was being exported around the globe. In the 1930s, one Spode catalogue recorded over 700 different shapes of Blue Italian.
Following his father’s death, Spode Jnr ran the business for the next three decades in partnership with London banker and tea merchant, William Copeland. During the “Golden Age” of English ceramics in the 19th century, the company expanded to become the largest in Stoke and an expert manufacturer of pottery of all kinds.
Copeland died in 1826, followed by Josiah II two years later, after which the company passed through the hands of several managers, including one of Spode’s sons, until 1833, when William Copeland’s son, William Taylor Copeland, acquired the business in partnership with Thomas Garrett.
From then to 1847, the company traded under the name of Copeland and Garrett. In 1846, William Taylor Copeland took complete control of the business, and it stayed within the Copeland family for four generations until 1966.
Top artists such as CF Hurten, were hired from Europe and the best pieces were displayed during the Great Exhibition of London in 1851 and at two further international exhibitions in London and Paris in 1862 and 1878 respectively.
After the First World War, dinner and tea sets were high on the list of priorities for young homeowners, and massive quantities were made that continue to be used and rediscovered today.
Look for such patterns as Chinese Rose, India Tree, Italian, and Christmas Tree, which are among the most well-known.
The company also produced Art Deco and modernist styles in the 1930s by recruiting sculpture Erik Olsen, who was able to capture the taste of the time along with new patterns and modern techniques.
After 1966, the company changed hands numerous times before merging with Royal Worcester.