T Hughes & Sons

Earthenware manufacturer at the Unicorn Works, Longport, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England

In 1888 Thomas Hughes purchased the Longport Pottery from Davenport's. This was a large pottery with many buildings. Hughes demolished some of the the buildings, letting others to other potters and by 1893 had started to move his manufactory to here from the nearby Top Bridge Works.
In 1895 the business was renamed to Thomas Hughes & Son.
In December 1899 Thomas Hughes left the business leaving Allan Edward Hughes as sole partner - the name Thomas Hughes & Son was retained.
At some time after Joseph D Hodgkinson and Frank Garnett joined Allan E Hughes in the business.
In September 1903 Joseph Dunn Hodgkinson left the business leaving the partners Allan E Hughes and Frank Garnett - the name Thomas Hughes & Son was retained.
The business was incorporated as a limited company c.1910.
A 1947 and 1951 trade directory record the Managing Director as B.V. Hughes and F.S. Crossley as a director and Sales Manager.
The company got into financial difficulty and in May 1957 liquidators were appointed.
The Unicorn Pottery was taken over by Arthur Wood & Sons (Longport) Ltd. the other occupant of the historic Davenport Works site.

Portrait of Thomas Hughes - the master of Unicorn works pottery.
It was painted by Leonard Hughes - a respected portrait
painter and member of the Royal Cambrian Academy

1907 Staffordshire Sentinel
'Business Reference Guide to The Potteries, Newcastle & District'

The predecessor Thomas Hughes produced large amounts of white ironstone
this type of ware was continued by Thomas Hughes & Son

covered tureen in the Shapoo pattern

This pattern was first produced by T & R Boote who likely sold the pattern engravings to Thomas Hughes around 1888 when Boote stopped manufacture of decorated ware.

Boote produced this pattern in Flow-Blue, Thomas Hughes produced it as a standard transfer-ware, mostly in bue & white but also in other mono-colours.
T. Hugues & Son also produced this pattern in hand painted polychrome designs.

Shapoo
T Hughes & Son Ltd
England

mark with 'LTD' 1910+

Konny Kraft was the name of a range of hand painted ware
produced from c.1930 to 1957

Marks used on ware for identification:

Ware without '& Son' was produced by the predecessor Thomas Hughes.

Thomas Hughes & Son started operation in 1895.

In 1910 the business was incorporated as a limited company and marks included 'Ltd' are after this date.

A shield mark was introduced around 1930 and continued to aorund 1950.

From around 1935 marks were used with the name 'Hughes' (with 'T' or 'Thomas' or '& Son') - sometimes these marks have a unicorn symbol but not always.

Various marks throughout the period of operation (1895-1957) incorporate the place name Longport - the district in Stoke-on-Trent where the factory was located.

Trade names used were 'Konnykraft' ware and 'Unicorn' ware.