The history of the Poole Pottery can be traced back to 1873, when
Jesse Carter purchased the East Quay Pottery in Poole from James
Walker, after that gentleman's pottery business went bankrupt. Jesse
Carter's background was as a successful builders merchant in Surrey,
but he believed that the architectural ceramics business offered a
profitable future and determined to put all his efforts into this.
Moving to the area with his family, two of whom were to play a major
role in the future of the pottery, he began to work. By the 1880s,
Carter & Company had become very well established locally,
overshadowing some longer established local companies and beginning to
encroach on the territory of some of the well known Staffordshire
potteries.
At this time, the output of the Poole Pottery was
revolved around decorative tiling and other architectural pottery, such
as fire surrounds. Carter & Co's wide range of decorative tiles
were being widely used in shops, pubs and hotels, as well as for
advertising and mosaic flooring.
During this time two of Jesse
Carter's sons, Charles and Owen had begun working for the family
business, and when Jesse Carter retired in 1901, control of the
business fell the them. Over the next twenty years, the output of the
company changed to include a growing variety of decorative wares, and
the end result of this was the formation of Carter, Stabler & Adams
as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Carter & Company in 1921. Harold
and Phoebe Stabler and John and Truda Adams brought between them a
wealth of creative experience in design, modelling and decoration and
the mission of the CSA company was to produce decorative and table
wares from the East Quay works in Poole.
Over the next forty
years, the Carter, Stabler & Adams company proved very successful,
producing a very wide variety of decorative and domestic wares. One of
the most easily recognisable and successful CSA styles is that of the
red earthenware body with a white slip ground and a clear glaze. This
style was used until the mid-thirties, when C.S.A. moved to using white
clay bodies, probably because they were more suitable for tableware
than the red earthenware bodies were. The decorative pieces were all
hand painted with patterns that were largely the work of Truda Adams.
These colourful and stylish patterns played a key part in the success
of CSA and have endured superbly, still looking fresh and attractive
today. CSA's output during the 20s and 30s also included a range of
skilfully modelled pieces, often by Harold Stabler or John Adams. Today
these models have become highly collectable and hard to find in perfect
condition.
As with all of the British pottery industry, the Poole
Pottery's output was severely affected by the second world war. Whilst
output was restricted by government legislation to plain utility wares
until the late 1940s, new ranges were being planned and the retirement
or death of several key figures such as Harold Stabler and John Adams
meant that it was time for an influx of fresh talent to Carter, Stabler
& Adams.
The ranges of white earthenware that had been so
successful in the past had also become almost unmanageably complex, and
these were now rationalised, to become known as Traditional ware, with
three levels of decoration - elaborate, medium and simple. Just as in
their time, the Truda Adams designs had captured the fashions and
styles of their time, something new was needed to reflect the new
styles of the 1950s. Several new ranges were introduced, but by far the
most striking and successful were the Free Form range of patterns and
shapes. Poole Pottery freeform was distinguished by a very modern new
range of shapes, mixing angles and curves to create completely new
shapes, as well as variations on more traditional shapes.
Alfred
Read and Guy Sydenham were the driving force behind this range of
shapes, and many of the early freeform patterns were also Alfred Read
designs, with both Read and Sydenham being responsible for throwing the
new shapes. Also especially notable were the creative talents of Ruth
Pavely and Ann Read. Responsible for designing and applying many of the
hand painted patterns that were applied to Read and Sydenhams' shapes,
Ruth Pavely was Head of Painting at the Poole Pottery for many years,
and her mark can be seen on some of the finest Poole Pottery pieces of
the 1950s, as can Ann Read's. Although John Adams had retired, many of
his tableware shapes were also still in use and gained a new lease of
life with the application of free form patterns.
Freeform proved
to be just what the doctor ordered for the Poole Pottery, and was very
successful throughout the 1950s. Today, fans of 1950s design are keen
to collect Poole Freeform shapes and the better examples of these
pieces command strong values.
As the 1950s came to a close, Poole
Pottery was as ever aware that changing times and fashions necessitated
fresh creative ideas and looked to one of their newest designers,
Robert Jefferson, to lead this work. Jefferson was experienced in the
pottery industry, and as well as new design influences, he led the
implementation of more modern manufacturing techniques, essential if
Poole were to remain popular and profitable.
In the early 1960s a
new range of studio ware was released - the Delphis range. This
featured bold, colourful designs on new shapes created by Robert
Jefferson and Tony Morris. The Delphis range proved popular and once
more in keeping with the spirit of the times and remained in
production, with many variations, until the mid-1970s. Delphis was then
superseded by another bold and striking range, the Aegean ware range.
Leslie Elsden was one of the main creative forces behind this range,
providing a fitting culmination to his 50 year career at the Poole
Pottery. Much of the Aegean range was decorated using either the
silhouette or sgraffito techniques, and the extensive use of browns,
oranges and yellows gave the Aegean pieces a very distinctive
character. While some shapes were shared with the Delphis and other
ranges, both Delphis and Aegean ware have very distinctive and easily
recognisable characters.
Poole Pottery continues to produce fine
pottery from its factory in Poole today, but its survival in the 21st
century has not been easy. In 2003 the Poole Pottery was declared
bankrupt, eventually to be saved by a group of private investors. An
unfortunate consequence of the bankruptcy was the sale of the entire
contents of the Poole Pottery's museum - while the Borough of Poole was
able to buy some of the contents of the museum at the resulting auction
at Christies, much of it has now been dispersed to private collectors
and dealers from all over the world, depriving future generations of
the chance to see what was probably the world's most enviable
collection of Poole Pottery.
Today, Poole Pottery seem to be
finding a new direction, with some innovative new ranges, including the
first ever truely red tableware (red glazes have historically not been
safe to eat from). Time will tell if they can regain their place in the
top echelon of British pottery companies.
