KENT - Olde Staffordshire Ware

FORWARD

The present generation dedicates
this little booklet to those members
of the Kent family, both past and
present, who have overcome great
difficulties through the years to
preserve our family heritage "Old
Staffordshire Pottery"

and

To our many world-wide collector
friends who still find interest in
preserving examples of craftman-
ship by which the work of the
individual artist is expressed in form
and colour in the traditional old
Staffordshire style of pottery.

John S Kent
Burslem, 1955

Our Story

Sitting in the modern office of a highly mechanised factory
(making, in the main, porcelain fittings for our great Electrical
Industry), it is difficult to believe that in this same street a few
generations ago stood some of the old cottages-cum-works where
families made "Old Staffordshire" pottery, with the green fields
as a background.

Fortunately, the Kent family has retained a small portion of
the present factory wherein "Old Staffordshire" style pottery is
still made from moulds produced from the original master-moulds.
Craftsmen make each piece of pottery by the old method of
"pressing", entirely by hand from plastic clay. After firing, each
piece is decorated by brushwork which is applied by craftswomen,
so that each piece carries the personal touch of the artist.

Burslem, our home town, has rightly been called "The Mother
Town" of the Potteries. It was the birthplace and workshop of
so many of our greatest sons of potting. Josiah Wedgwood,
F.R.S., was born and worked here. He, along with other great
potters of his day, rather emulated the classics in pottery, so
bringing world fame to pottery formed in that manner.

Another great potter - one Ralph Wood - probably the
creator of the English Toby Jug, established what could be called
"Topical" Staffordshire pottery, depicting in local style, great
personages, events, customs and everyday subjects in clay and
colour.

William Kent, our founder, followed on somewhat similar
lines to the latter. A potter, of a family of potters, he established
a works in the year 1878 on the site of the present factory, and the
family is still making "Old Staffordshire" pottery here.

A selection from our range of Old Staffordshire Cottages
The illustrations in this little booklet recall the story of the
old times as depicted by local potters in their day

Kent's "Old Staffordshire" pottery is not "reproduction" in the strictest
sense of the word,. Because, except for a period during wartime, the
pottery has been produced continuously from the early days.
We, who appreciate these examples of a period in Staffordshire pottery
have to thank members of the kent family for preserving the manufacture
of traditional pottery at the expense of modern development.