Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era", an independent business from 1793 to 1968. It was a leader in ceramic design, working in a number of different ceramic bodies, decorative techniques, and "a glorious pot-pourri of styles - Rococo shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and Art Nouveau borders were among the many wonderful concoctions". As well as pottery vessels and sculptures, the firm was a leading manufacturer of tiles and other architectural ceramics, producing work for both the Houses of Parliament and United States Capitol. The family continued to control the business until the mid-20th century. Mintons had the usual Staffordshire variety of company and trading names over the years, and the products of all periods are generally referred to as either "Minton", as in "Minton china", or "Mintons", the mark used on many. Mintons Ltd was the company name from 1879 onwards.

History

1793 to 1850

The firm began in 1793 when Thomas Minton (1765–1836) founded his pottery factory in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England as "Thomas Minton and Sons", producing earthenware. He formed a partnership, Minton & Poulson, c.1796, with Joseph Poulson who made bone china from c.1798 in his new near-by china pottery. When Poulson died in 1808, Minton carried on alone, using Poulson's pottery for china until 1816. He built a new china pottery in 1824. No very early earthenware is marked, and perhaps a good deal of it was made for other potters. On the other hand, some very early factory records survive in the Minton Archive, which is much more complete than those of most Staffordshire firms, and the early porcelain is marked with pattern numbers, which can be tied to the surviving pattern-books. Early Mintons products were mostly standard domestic tableware in blue transfer-printed or painted earthenware, including the ever-popular Willow pattern. Minton had trained as an engraver for transfer printing with Thomas Turner. From c. 1798 production included bone china from his partner Joseph Poulson's near-by china pottery. China production ceased c. 1816 following Joseph Poulson's death in 1808, recommencing in a new pottery in 1824. Minton was a prime mover, and the main shareholder in the Hendra Company, formed in 1800 to exploit china clay and other minerals from Cornwall. Named after Hendra Common, St Dennis, Cornwall, the partners included Minton, Poulson, Wedgwood, William Adams, and the owners of New Hall porcelain. The company was profitable for many years, reducing the cost of materials to the owning potters, and selling to other firms. Early Mintons porcelain was "decorated in the restrained Regency style", much of it just with edging patterns rather than fully painted scenes, thus keeping prices within the reach of a relatively large section of the middle class.

Mid-Victorian period

In 1849 Minton engaged a young French ceramicist Léon Arnoux as art director who remained with the Minton Company until 1892. This and other enterprising appointments enabled the company greatly to widen its product ranges. It was Arnoux who formulated the tin-glaze used for Minton's rare tin-glazed Majolica together with the in-glaze metallic oxide enamels with which it was painted. He also developed the colored lead glazes and kiln technology for Minton's highly successful lead-glazed Palissy ware, later also called 'majolica'. This product transformed Minton's profitability for the next thirty years. Minton tin-glazed Majolica imitated the process and style of Italian Renaissance tin-glazed maiolica resulting in fine in-glaze brush-painted decoration on an opaque whitish ground. Minton coloured glaze decorated Palissy ware/ majolica employed an existing process much improved and with an extended range of coloured lead glazes applied to the biscuit body and fired. Both products were launched at The Great Exhibition of 1851. Along with the majolica of multiple other English factories all are now grouped as Victorian majolica. The coloured glazes of Palissy ware became a Mintons staple, as well as being copied by many other firms in England and abroad. Mintons made special pieces for the major exhibitions that were a feature of the period, beginning with the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, where they had considerable success, winning the bronze medal for "beauty and originality of design". They followed this with a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris. In London Queen Victoria bought Parian pieces and, for 1,000 guineas, a dessert service in a mix of bone china and Parian, which she gave to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria; it remains in the Hofburg in Vienna.

Late Victorian and 20th century

From the mid-1890s onwards, Mintons made major contributions to Art Nouveau ceramics with a fine range of slip-trailed majolica ware, many designed by Marc-Louis Solon's son Leon Solon and his colleague John Wadsworth. Leon Solon was hired by Mintons after his work was published in the hugely influential design magazine The Studio and he worked for the company from 1895 to 1905, including a brief stint as Art Director. Solon introduced designs influenced by the Vienna Secession art movement, founded by Gustav Klimt and others, and a range in earthenware made from about 1901 to 1916 was branded as "Secessionist Ware". It was made mostly using industrial techniques that kept it relatively cheap, and was aimed at a broad market. The range concentrated on items bought singly or in pairs, such as jugs or vases, rather than full table services. The Secessionist range covered both practical and ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports, vases and large jardinières. The shapes of ornamental vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes were conventional. Early Secessionist patterns featured realistic renderings of natural motifs—flowers, birds and human figures—but under the combined influence of Solon and Wadsworth, these became increasingly exaggerated and stylised, with the characteristic convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reaching extravagant heights. "Secessionist Ware" was arguably the last boldly innovative move made by Mintons in terms of design. After World War I wares became rather more conventional. The Minton factory in the centre of Stoke was rebuilt and modernised after World War II by the then managing director, J. E. Hartill, a great-great-great-grandson of Thomas Minton. But the firm shared in the overall decline of the Staffordshire pottery industry in the post-war period. The tableware division was always the mainstay of Minton's fortunes and the post-1950 rationalisation of the British pottery industry took Mintons into a merger with Royal Doulton Tableware Ltd. By the 1980s Mintons was only producing a few different shapes but still employed highly skilled decorators.

Legacy

Minton Archive

The Minton Archive comprises papers and drawings of the designs, manufacture and production of Mintons. It was acquired by Waterford Wedgwood in 2005 along with other assets of the Royal Doulton group. At one time it seemed the archive would become part of the Wedgwood Museum collection. In the event, the archive was presented by the Art Fund to the City of Stoke-on-Trent, but it was envisaged that some material would be displayed at Barlaston as well as the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

Buildings

The main factory on London Road, Stoke-on-Trent was demolished in the 1990s, and the other factory, including office accommodation and a Minton Museum, was demolished in 2002 as part of rationalisation within the Royal Doulton group. Royal Doulton was taken over in turn by the Waterford Wedgwood group in January 2005. As a result of these changes, the ceramics collection formerly in the Minton Museum was partly dispersed. On the other hand, the Minton Archive has been kept together with help from the Art Fund, being transferred to the City of Stoke-on-Trent in 2015. The Victorian building on Shelton Old Road, Stoke, which used to be the Minton Hollins tileworks is on a separate site from the former Minton pottery. It was threatened with demolition in the 1980s but was listed in 1986 and has been preserved.