Pottery factories (Potworks or Manufactories) ranged from the sublime vast and purpose-built works with thousands of workers (such as those of Enoch Wood in Burslem and Josiah Wedgwood in Etruria); to back-street hovels with one or two workers.

Some potters built and owned their own works. Many others were tenants in works built by others and a succession of potters occupied the same works. It was also a common practice for a works to be split between two different pottery companies or for a larger manufacturer to let out a smaller section of his works to a potter who would make ware which was not of interest to the potworks owner.

All this adds to the happy confusion  when trying to trace details of a particular manufacturer (of which there have been over 2000).