Keele Street Pottery Co Ltd

Tunstall
Longton (Meir)

1915
1958
as Staffs Potteries

date that ware marked 'Keele Street' was ceased is unsure.

Earthenware manufacturer at Keele Street, Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, England

Keele Street Pottery was established in 1915 by Charles H. Bowers, Elijah Brookes, J.Robinson, and H.W. Pitt. Elijah Brookes had previously operated as E. Brookes & Son.
H.W. Pitt was the technical manager he developed ' once fired ware' and in 1916 the business commenced mass production of once fired egg cups.
Manufacturing was suspended in 1941 during World War II, under the Concentration of Industries Act and the factory used by government to store shell cases.
In 1946 Charles Griffiths Bowers (son of C. H. Bowers) reactivated the business and manufacturing was allowed to restart. The works opened producing once fired white cups. In 1947 the range was extended to include ornamental ware, cottage ware and other fancies.
Around 1946 Charles G. Bowers, as well as restarting the Keele Street Pottery, formed the Keel Street Group (later renamed Staffordshire Potteries Ltd.) and began to acquire pottery businesses under this umbrella company.
Keele Street Pottery became a subsidiary or the group and was eventually subsumed into Staffordshire Potteries Ltd. at the works operating from the former Meir Airport site.

Charles H. BOWERS: Began work with Booths of Tunstall where he later became Managing Director. He became Alderman of the city of Stoke-on-Trent 1910.

His son, Charles Griffiths Bowers, followed the same career path with Booths, moving to Keele Street Pottery in 1946. C.G. Bowers died in 1961.

ELIJAH BROOKES: "Mr Brookes was born in Brierley Hill, South Staffordshire in 1845 and began his working life as an engineer on the railway at Stockton & Darlington, later becoming an engineer and contractor in North Wales. He lived at Old House Green, Mow Cop, [Staffordshire] at the time of his death.
In 1882 he came to Staffordshire as a manufacturer of Birmingham small wares [metal wares] and by 1892 became associated with the pottery trade, specialising in high-class jet ware. Then for several years he was at Longton as a general earthenware manufacturer." (extract from an undated Evening Sentinel newspaper cutting)

In 1915 Mr Brookes and partners began the Keele Street Pottery, Tunstall. The company was set up for "the mass production of utility wares". He was "the inventor of many patent appliances in the pottery trade" and remained a Director of the company that he founded until his death. He lived at Old House Green, Mow Cop.

Nursery ware

In the late 1950s and early 60s Keele Street Pottery introduced a wide range of children's ware - plates, bowls, mugs, egg cups at the like.

These featured, under licence, characters from popular childrens television programmes of the time such as Andy Pandy and his friends Teddy and Lubby Lou, Sooty, Pinky & Perky, the Lone Ranger as well as nursery rhymes.

Sooty egg cups by Keele Street Pottery - these were produced both painted and just plain glazed