Coalport China Works: the history of the factory from John Rose to Charled Bruff
With a history reaching back 150 years from the late 18thC to 1925, the Coalport factory production encompassed every corner of the ceramic compass, from every-day utilitarian wares to the most splendid and magnificent.
Coalport the place rose from riverside meadows when the Shropshire canal serving the East Shropshire coalfields was connected through the meadows by William Reynolds in 1788. With the work completed, this vital transport centre spawned new industries and the area was named from its importance as a connection between the coal and its transport. The new settlement attracted the most important industry: the china manufactory of John Rose, known then as Blakeney and Rose, moving his smaller concern at Jackfield to the canal side in 1795 with his previous partner, Edward Blakeney. Rose served his apprenticeship on the other side of the river at the Caughley factory and when this concern failed in 1799, it was purchased by Rose, runnng both factories for a time in tandem. For fourteen years from 1800, a confusion can arise in the attribution of "Coalport" china as Rose's brother, Thomas, opened a second factory on the opposite side of the canal to his elder brother, in partnership with William Reynolds and William Horton (Reynolds replaced a few years later by Robert Anstice). The two businesses at times were almost shadows, producing similar shapes and patterns, an obfuscation ended by John Rose in 1814 when he bought out his younger brother and merged the two factories. The lease was allowed to lapse on the Caughley site and from this period, the production was centred on the Coalport site, by which time there had been a change of financial backers and the concern is known as John Rose & Company. Much of the fabric of the abandoned Caughley site was dismantled and rebuilt at the Coalport works.
The factory flourished, acquiring a reputation for the finest decoration, boosted by the
acquisition in 1820, of painters from the Swansea and Nantgarw manufactories in Wales, bringing in William Billingsley and Walker, and having the dual benefit of shutting down a serious market competitor. Like many of the early china works, the Nantgarw concern was always struggling with a lack of adequate funding and while it would almost certainly follow those others and ultimately fail, Rose was an astute businessman and seized his chance to accomplish the double benefit of adding the skills and knowledge of his competitors to his own concern.
The China Works continued to thrive, improving the quality of the porcelain body and adding to its stable of the very best painters and gilders, including such illustrious names as Jabey Aston, James Rouse, Kelshall and the Birbecks, so that by the time of Rose's death in 1841, the company was one of the leading producers of the time. Its success continued under the ownership of William Rose and William Pugh, with international recognition of excellence at exhibitions, showcasing the works of Robert Abraham specialising in the outstanding cherubs, William Cook and his superb flower painting and John Randall, the master of bird studies. The production by this period shows the clear influence of the Sevres factory, the Coalport concern successfully developing the vibrant Sevres ground colours, as shown with the Rose du Barry pink produced triumphantly in time for the 1851 Great Exhibition. The artistic glory of this period was nevertheless overshadowed by increasing financial difficulties and, following the death of William Pugh, the company went into receivership in 1876, in which sorry state it languished for five years until it was rescued by its purchase in 1881 by an Ipswich businessman, Charles Bruff, who tackled its revival with the vigour of fresh blood and enterprise, employing an art director in Thomas Bott, and set about restoring the works to its previous glory, improving again the body and producing top quality decoration. Alongside the ornamental wares, the factory produced table and tea wares making use of the vast back catalogue of designs.
All might have been very well, but the factory could not remain immune from the First World War and the subsequent worldwide depression which affected the potteries. The difficulties were compounded by the factory's geographical separation from the Staffordshire potteries with its consequent isolation and distribution problems. Once again, financial losses loomed over Bruff and Bott, this time not to be averted, ultimately forcing the sale of the concern to the Cauldon works in 1925, transferring production to the Staffordshire potteries in Stoke on Trent and closing the factory at Coalport. Although some painters and potters moved to Stoke on Trent, most of the workforce was laid off and the Coalport enterprise as it was when begun by John Rose as a china producer came to an end. The Coalport backstamp still appears, but it is now within the Wedgwood group, producing collectible figurines.
©Glebe House Porcelain 2006
