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Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era",Battie, 168 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 - shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and borders were among the many wonderful concoctions".Battie, 170 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. the potteries org, Index "M"

History
1793 to 1850
The firm began in 1793 when (1765–1836) founded his pottery factory in , Staffordshire, England as "Thomas Minton and Sons", producing . He formed a partnership, Minton & Poulson, c.1796, with Joseph Poulson who made 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 , 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.Godden, 257-258, 267

Early Mintons products were mostly standard domestic tableware in blue or painted earthenware, including the ever-popular . Minton had trained as an engraver for transfer printing with Thomas Turner. From production included bone china from his partner Joseph Poulson's near-by china pottery. China production ceased 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 and other minerals from Cornwall. Named after Hendra Common, St Dennis, Cornwall, the partners included Minton, Poulson, , 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.Godden, 254-255

Early Mintons porcelain was "decorated in the restrained Regency style",Battie, 168 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.

Early porcelain
File:Creamer, fluted Old Oval shape, c. 1797-1799, Minton, hybrid hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00779.JPG|Creamer, fluted Old Oval shape, -1799 File:Creamer, Old Oval shape, c. 1800-1815, Minton, bone china, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00793.JPG|Creamer, Old Oval shape, -1815 File:Teapot and stand, New Oval shape, c. 1800-1805, Minton, bone china, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00775.JPG|Teapot and stand, New Oval shape, -1805 File:Teapot and stand, London shape, c. 1813-1816, Minton, bone china, overglaze iron-red enamel, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00790.JPG|Teapot and stand, London shape, -1816 File:Waste bowl, c. 1812-1815, Minton, bone china, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00786.JPG|, -1815 Minton's two sons, Thomas and Herbert, were taken into partnership in 1817, but Thomas went in to the church and was ordained in 1825. Herbert had been working in the business since 1808, when he was 16, initially as a travelling salesman. On his death in 1836, Minton was succeeded by his son Herbert Minton (1793–1858), who took John Boyle as a partner to help him the same year, given the size of the business; by 1842 they had parted company.Godden, 255-256 Herbert developed new production techniques and took the business into new fields, notably including decorative making, through his association with leading architects and designers including and, it is said, Prince Albert.

Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton, Hollins & Company, which was at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The firm exhibited widely at trade exhibitions throughout the world and examples of its exhibition displays are held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. where the company gained many prestigious contracts including tiled flooring for the United States Capitol. The "encaustic" technique allowed clays of different colours to be used in the same tile, allowing far greater decorative possibilities. Great numbers of new churches and public buildings were given floors in the tiles, and despite the protests of , many medieval church floors were "updated" with them.

Hard white unglazed "statuary porcelain", later called ware due to its resemblance to , was first introduced by in the 1840s. It was further developed by Minton who employed John Bell, and other famous sculptors to produce figures for reproduction. Mintons had already been making some figures in the more demanding medium of biscuit porcelain, and reused some of these moulds in Parian.Battie, 169

In the year ended 1842, the sales of the main company Minton & Co totalled (all round £'000s) £45K, divided as follows:Godden, 257 for all these figures

  • Porcelain: gilt £13K and ungilt £8K
  • Earthenware: enamelled £6K, printed £10K, "" £4K, coloured bodies £2K
  • Ironstone: 2K

Much of the transfer printing was done by outside specialists, and "engraving done off the Works" cost £641, while "engraving done on the Works" cost £183.Godden, 257

1820 to 1850
File:Dish with peas c1820 VA 414-810a-1855.jpg|"Cheater" dish with peas, File:Figure (England), 1830–1836 (CH 18394481) (cropped).jpg|Biscuit porcelain figure of , 1830s File:Silenus Jug, ca. 1840 (CH 18715453) (cropped).jpg|Jug with , glazed stoneware, 1840 File:The 'Well Spring' Vase LACMA M.2001.19.3.jpg|The 'Well Spring' Vase, an early design by , File:'Flax' Paper Knife LACMA M.2001.19.4.jpg|Paper knife, Parian ware and gilt metal,

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 formulatedLeon Arnoux, 1867, British Manufacturing Industry - Report on Pottery, p.42 [2]"Majolica tin-glaze was produced for the first time by Messrs. Minton, in 1850, and they have been for many years the only producers of this article. The name of majolica is now applied indiscriminately to all fancy articles of coloured pottery. When, however, it is decorated by means of coloured glazes applied, if these are transparent translucent, it ought to be called Palissy ware ... Messrs. Wedgwood, George Jones, and a few other makers of less importance, are reproducing it more or less successfully. To Messrs. Minton, however, we owe the revival of the ware the, which, in connection with in their majolica the, created such a sensation in the French International Exhibition of 1855." the tin-glaze used for Minton's rare tin-glazed 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 Palissynamed after the French Renaissance potter (c. 1510 – c. 1589) 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 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 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 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 in .Battie, 169

Lead-glazed "majolica", and grand Victorian showpieces
File:Maj4 (cropped).jpg| File:Pitcher (England), 1868 (CH 18806095) (cropped).jpg|Jug with dancing medieval figures, 1868 File:GlazesLeadMinton19378JunoNeptuneMercurySelene (cropped).jpg|Platter with Juno, Neptune, Mercury, Selene, . Unlike much "Palissy Ware", this is close to actual . File:Planter (England), ca. 1880 (CH 18635877) (cropped).jpg|Planter, File:Majolica18661.JPG|Banana leaf garden seat File:Majolica18788.JPG|Pie-dish with heads of hares and ducks File:Service dessert Victoria Franz-Joseph Vienna inv 191 (cropped).jpg|Centrepiece with cream jugs, 1851; part of the dessert service Queen Victoria gave to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria File:Prometheus Vase (1867).jpg|The " Vase", 1867, in various techniques File:Vase MET RRP Minton 68.69.15 16 Bk ret.jpg|Pair of pâte-sur-pâte vases by , 1870 File:Fabbrica di minton, brucia profumi, staffordshire, inghilterra, xix secolo.jpg|Grand incense-burner in various techniques

The next twenty-five years saw Mintons develop several new specialities in design and technique, while production of established styles continued unabated. As at Sèvres itself, and many other factories, wares evoking Sèvres porcelain of the 18th century had become popular from about the 1830s, and Arnoux perfected Mintons' blue and pink ground colours, essential for the Sèvres style, but much used for other wares. The Sèvres pink was called rose Pompadour, leading Mintons to call theirs rose du Barry after another royal mistress.Battie, 168 Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847), artistic director of Sèvres had given Mintons plaster casts of some original moulds, which enabled them to make very close copies. Vase and cover, V&A Museum At the end of the century, when the husband of Georgina Ward, Countess of Dudley, sold his original Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship, a famous, spectacular and rare Sèvres shape of the 1760s (now Getty Museum) in the 1880s, Mintons were commissioned to make a copy.Sassoon, Adrian, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain: Catalogue of the Collections, p. 52, 1992, Getty Trust Publications, , 9780892361731, google books, though Sotheby's gave a somewhat different history when they sold the Minton Museum's example in 2005

, introduced in the 1840s, had become a strong area for Mintons, whose catalogue of 1852 already offered 226 figures in it, priced from an extremely modest two shillings for a dog, to six guineas for a classical figure. In that decade partly tinted Parian figures were introduced, and part-gilded ones.Battie, 168 Copies of contemporary sculptures that had been hits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition or elsewhere were produced at a much-reduced scale in Parian. The American sculptor ' hit sculpture The Greek Slave was first made in 1843 in , and by the end of the decade some of the five life-size versions he made had toured several countries. Mintons first made a copy in 1848; by the version illustrated here, from 1849, the figure had lost the heavy chains between her hands, which were perhaps too expensive to make for a popular product.

Arnoux had an interest in reviving Saint-Porchaire ware, then generally known as "Henri II ware". This was very high-quality lead-glazed earthenware made from the 1520s to the 1540s in France; in 1898 the pottery was located to the village of Saint-Porchaire (nowadays a part of , ). Perhaps sixty original pieces survive, and at the time the ware had a legendary reputation. This was a very complicated ware to make, with much use of inlays of clay with different colours. Arnoux mastered the technique and then taught Charles Toft, perhaps Mintons' top modeller, who produced a small number of pieces. In addition to his influence on the production of encaustic tiles and mosaics, Arnoux also developed and produced in the Portuguese style.Digby Wyatt, 26 May 1858, Journal of the Society of Arts, On the influence exercised on ceramic manufacturers by the late Mr. Herbert Minton, p.442 [6]

At some point before 1867 Mintons began to work with Christopher Dresser, often regarded as the most important British designer of the later 19th century. At that time he was beginning what became a strong interest in ceramic design, leading him to work with several other companies. His work with Mintons continued for several decades, and although the Minton Archive has many designs certainly in his hand, other pieces in his style can only be attributed to him. Dresser had travelled to Japan, and in the 1870s produced a number of designs reflecting Japanese ceramics, catching the rising fashion for in all areas of design. He was also interested in what might be called the "Anglo-Oriental" style, evoking both Islamic and East Asian design, but without precisely following anything.Battie, 170; "Dr Christopher Dresser and the Minton Connection",

On his death in 1858 Herbert Minton was succeeded by his equally dynamic nephew Colin Minton Campbell who had joined the partnership in 1849, with a 1/3 share. Herbert had decreased his involvement in day-to-day management in the years before his death.Godden, 256 He took the company into a highly successful exploration of Chinese cloisonné enamels, Japanese lacquer and Turkish pottery.

Eclectic revival styles
File:Tazza MET DP-13486-058 (cropped).jpg| by (not resembling in the slightest any actual medieval pottery); earthenware, 1850. Image:Mintonvanda.jpg|Vase with a bleu celeste ground, modelled after a Sèvres design, File:Minton tin-glazed maiolica plaque, circa 1860. Private Collection, England, UK.jpg|Tin-glazed maiolica plaque, , the boy from 's Triumphs of Caesar File:Bottle MET DT1023 (cropped).jpg|Persian bottle shape, , design attributed to Christopher Dresser. Metropolitan note File:Centerpiece MET DP-13486-089.jpg|Porcelain centrepiece in the style of Renaissance , 1866 File:Plate LACMA M.2003.175.jpg|Porcelain plate in the style of Renaissance Limoges enamel, 1866, by Henry Stacy Marks File:Pair of round, flat bodied bottles MET DP-1687-025 (cropped).jpg|Pair of bottles in "Oriental" style, reminiscent of Chinese cloisonné enamel, 1870s, design attributed to Christopher Dresser. File:Pair of salts MET DP-13486-041 (cropped).jpg|Pair of salts in "Henri Deux" or Saint-Porchaire ware style, by , in lead-glazed "majolica" File:Bowl MET DT234914 (cropped).jpg|Oriental bowl, 1871, Christopher Dresser, with motifs from ancient Chinese ritual bronzes, in a "cloisonné ware" style. File:Potpourri MET DP-13486-047.jpg|"Henri II ware" meets Islamic style in this pot-pourri vase by Charles Toft, 1871. This decoration is painted rather than inlaid. Metropolitan Museum curator's note

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 gave Arnoux the opportunity to recruit the modeller who had developed the technique of pâte-sur-pâte at Sèvres and brought it with him to Minton. In this process the design is built up in relief with layers of liquid slip, with each layer being allowed to dry before the next is applied. There was great demand for Solon's plaques and vases, featuring maidens and cherubs, and Minton assigned him apprentices to help the firm become the unrivaled leader in this field.

Others introduced to Minton by Arnoux included the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and the painter Antoine Boullemier.

In 1870 Mintons opened an art pottery studio in , London directed by William Stephen Coleman and encouraged both amateur and professional artists to become involved in pottery decoration and design. This might be in hand-painted plaques, or in producing designs to be replicated in larger quantities in the Stoke factory. When the studio was destroyed by fire in 1875, it was not rebuilt. "The art pottery studio", Mintons Archive

Mid-Victorian painting, 1865–1880
File:HHolidayMermaid4.JPG|Mermaid tile, 1867, by (1839–1927) File:ColemanPlate1869.JPG|Plate, 1869, William Stephen Coleman (1829–1904) File:Platter, 1871 (CH 18800997-2).jpg|Platter by William Stephen Coleman, 1871 File:Minton Shakespeare Tiles.jpg|Printed Shakespeare tiles, 1872, designed by John Moyr Smith File:Percy Anderson - Minton's earthenware wall plaque.jpg|Plaque with fairies watching a spider, by Percy Anderson

Late Victorian and 20th century
From the mid-1890s onwards, Mintons made major contributions to ceramics with a fine range of majolica ware, many designed by Marc-Louis Solon's son 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 art movement, founded by 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 Democratic Dish: Mintons Secessionist Ware",

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.; "The Democratic Dish: Mintons Secessionist Ware",

File:'Bamboo' Motif Teacup and Saucer LACMA AC1998.265.7.1-.2 (cropped).jpg|"Bamboo" pattern, by Christopher Dresser, porcelain, 1875 File:Plate MET ES3561.jpg|Porcelain plate influenced by , 1881 File:U-shaped vase MET DT5885.jpg|U-shaped vase by Christopher Dresser, porcelain, 1886 or 1889 File:Secessionist19334.JPG|Secessionist vases File:Secessionist19170.JPG|Secessionist vase

"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 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 Tableware Ltd. By the 1980s Mintons was only producing a few different shapes but still employed highly skilled decorators.

Legacy
Minton Archive
The 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 group. At one time it seemed the archive would become part of the collection. In the event, the archive was presented by the to the City of , but it was envisaged that some material would be displayed at 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 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 has been kept together with help from the , 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 in 1986 and has been preserved.

Notes
  • , ed., Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Porcelain, 1990, Conran Octopus,
  • Godden, Geoffrey, English China, 1985, Barrie & Jenkins,
  • Savage, George, Pottery Through the Ages, Penguin, 1959

Further reading
  • Atterbury, Paul, and Batkin, Maureen, Dictionary of Minton, Antique Collectors' Club, 1990.

External links

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