China manufacturer at the Gladstone Pottery, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England

• Members of the Procter family had been involved in potery manufacturing at the Gladstone Pottery Works since c.1876 - originally as a partner in Hodson & Co.

• In 1939 The Procter family business of George Procter & Co. was acquired by Thomas Poole (who also owned another pottery business - Thomas Poole (Longton) Ltd.), and the Gladstone Works business was re-named Gladstone China (Longton) Ltd. 

• The Procter and Poole families were related by Marriage - George Procter (the grandson of the original George Procter) had married the daughter of Thomas Poole.

• George Procter continued on the board of the new company along with James and Horace Poole. 

• From 1941, during the Second World War Gladstone China closed temporarily and the business was ‘nucleated’ and production concentrated with the firm of Thomas Poole who had been granted a government license to continue production under the Wartime Concentration Scheme. 

• The Gladstone Pottery reopened in 1945 at the end of the war.

•  In 1948 Gladstone Pottery and Thomas Poole businesses were merged and acquired by a new public company - Thomas Poole & Gladstone China Ltd (TPGC Ltd) - which was still controlled by the Poole family. 

• The 1951 Pottery Gazette Directory records the directors as: Horace Poole, James Poole, D. J. Poole and R. H. Poole. 

• The Gladstone Pottery continued operating under the name Gladstone China (Longton) Ltd until 1952 when it was renamed Gladstone China.