Denby Pottery Celebrates Bicentennial Ivor Hughes Photos courtesy Ivor Hughes The George V Coronation Mug of 1911 was commissioned by a Derbyshire village. The “Nipper” ashtray, the candlestick in Electric Blue and the green duck are all 1930s art pottery. T oday, Denby Pottery tableware is a familiar sight in department stores – but few shoppers realize that the pottery has a long history: It is 200 years old, and was at the forefront of popular designer art pottery in the 1920s and 30s. Earliest history Denby is a small town in the English Midlands, 40 miles north of the heart of the country’s ceramics industry in Stokeon-Trent (the Staffordshire Potteries). Whereas parts of Stoke had become major producers in the early 1700s, it wasn’t until 1809 that the first single-kiln pottery was built in Denby. That was when potter Joseph Jager first took advantage of the local clay, water, coal and transportation – the rich clay deposits had been discovered nearby during road excavation works. Jager had earlier been in partnership with William Bourne, a Staffordshire then Nottingham potter. William Bourne came to use Denby clay and liked it so much that he bought out Jager in 1812. In his sixties, he put son Joseph in charge at both Denby and nearby Belper. Joseph Bourne expanded the operation further in 1832, taking over a pottery in Codnor Park, to the north. Those three factories became two when the Belper operation was absorbed into Denby two years later; it reverted back to three in 1845 when he took over nearby Shipley Pottery (Shipley, Derbyshire) and went back to two in 1856, when Shipley Pottery was absorbed into Denby. Joseph Bourne died in 1860, leaving Joseph (junior) in charge. All operations were centralized in Denby in 1861 by absorbing Codnor Park. The Bourne pottery empire may have contracted a little, but the Denby site had never been larger. Within 50 years it had expanded from one man and his kiln into a consolidation of four sizeable potteries. But there was more to it than the clay, water, coal and transport links. Demand and supply The Industrial Revolution had created conurbations where people needed containers to transport and store foodstuffs. Earthenware broke too easily. Molten glass still had to be worked by hand and production was heavily taxed. Tin cans still had to be made, filled and sealed by hand and they were such heavy gauge that they had to be opened with a hammer and chisel. Thus, there was an enormous demand Page 86 ■ Antiques Journal Online Exclusive ■ November 2009