• At the age of 16, in 1753, John Turner was apprenticed to Daniel Bird - a potter at Cliffe Bank, Stoke.

• In 1756 Turner established his own business in Stoke town producing white stoneware in partnership with William Banks [Bankes] under the style of Turner or Turner & Banks. In 1762 Josiah Spode I joined Turner and Banks, in the same year Turner left and Spode took over as manager.

• Turner moved to works in nearby Lane End. Here he "manufactured every kind of pottery then in demand and also introduced some other kinds not previously known". Turner became "one of the most clever and successful potters Staffordshire ever produced". The ceramic art of Great Britain - Llewellynn Jewitt, 1878. 

• In about 1780 John Turner took his sons John and William into partnership.

• He was appointed potter to the Prince of Wales in 1784 and some of the ware is marked with the Prince of Wales feathers. 

• John Turner snr. died in December 1787 and his sons John and William succeeded him in the business.

• Around the turn of the century the company had financial problems, exacerbated by difficulties in collecting debts from Continental Europe.  By February 1804 John and William Turner had been joined in partnership by John Glover and Charles Simpson joined them and the business became Turner, Glover & Simpson (Turner & Co). 

• In November of 1804 John Turner had retired from the business. 

• In March 1806 the Turner, Glover, Simpson partnership was dissolved and it appears that the business was bankrupt. 

• By October of 1806 John and William Turner had met the bankruptcy conditions placed upon them. William Turner continued the business until he retired in 1829. 

Useful links:

Turner - History of the Staffordshire Potteries, Shaw

Turner - Printed British Pottery & Porcelain

Turner (potters) - Wikipedia 

TURNER, John (1737-87), pottery manufacturer, Lane End (now called Longton) 

John Turner of Lane End was christened 7th Jun 1737 at St Nicholas Church, Newport, Shropshire to parents Walter Turner & Mary Phipps.

Where he attended school is not known but he was sufficiently well-educated to be able to write his pottery chemical formulae in French to guard against industrial espionage. 

He was apprenticed to a Staffordshire potter, Daniel Bird, in 1753, and was established by 1756 in a partnership with R. Banks, making white stoneware, in a factory on the site of what became Copeland-Spode, in Stoke upon Trent. He moved to Lane End in 1762. (Jewitt).

He was acknowledged as being 'one of the cleverest and most successful potters Staffordshire ever produced.'

The earliest dated piece attributed to him is a 1762 teapot. About 1780 he discovered a vein of fine clay, peacock marl, at Green Dock, Edensor (Longton), from which he made a wide variety of ware of a cane colour. He also produced a blue glazed pottery similar to Japanese porcelain. He was both a friend and commercial rival of Josiah Wedgwood. 

John Turner was one of the six founders of the New Hall Works, Shelton.

John Turner was a pioneer of the atmospheric Newcomen steam engine in the Potteries, installing one in his pottery in 1775. 

He was appointed potter to the Prince of Wales in 1784 and some of the ware is marked with the Prince of Wales feathers. 

He married Ann nee Emery on 15 October 1759 and by her had three sons and three daughters. His sons William and John later became his partners, continuing the business after his death on 24 December 1787. The firm was declared bankrupt in 1806. William continued on his own until 1829 when the factory was sold. 

Sources: Jewitt's, B. Hiller, Master Potters of the Industrial Revolution – the Turners of Lane End, A Lamb 'Mechanisation and the Applications of Steam Power in the North Staffordshire Pottery Industry', in N.S.J.F.S. vol. 17, 1977; ) Mankowitz & Haggar Concise Encyclopedia of English Pottery....; People of the Potteries; information from Maureen Leese and Rob Fountain.

Date of birth and parents details updated June 2013 - information supplied by Rob Fountain. 

TURNER, William (1762-1835), pottery manufacturer, Longton. 

William Turner was born in1762, the son of John Turner. With his brother John he was in partnership with his father in the works at Lane End (Longton). After John Turner senior's death William and his brother continued the business. 

On 19 January 1800 they took out a patent for the manufacture of a new kind of stoneware called Turner's patent, which used Tabberner's mine rock. The rights were sold to Spode in 1805. 

The firm was declared bankrupt in 1806 and William continued on his own until the factory was sold in 1829. 

The firm's productions were among the best wares of their day, equaling Wedgwood's in quality and sometimes being mistaken for them. 

William was in Paris during the French Revolution, was arrested and escaped with his life only by the intervention of the British ambassador, the marquis of Stafford (later Duke of Sutherland). 

The effects of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars contributed to the firm's financial collapse in 1806. 

William, a rather more public figure than his brother John, was a major in the Longton volunteers in 1803. His bust, by George Ray, is in Stoke on Trent City Museum.

William Turner died in Longton on 5 July 1835. 

Sources: R Haggar, .Staffordshire Chimney Ornaments; B. Hillier, Master Potters of the Industrial Revolution – the Turners of Lane End; Jewitt; .Staffs. Advertiser  11 July 1835 (obit ), People of the Potteries; information from Maureen Leese.