- Denby Pottery Company
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Denby Pottery Company Ltd Type Private Industry Pottery Founded 1809 Headquarters Denby, Derbyshire, England Area served Worldwide Products Tableware, kitchenware Website www.Denby.co.uk 
Denbyware from the Blue Jetty range
Denby Pottery Company Ltd is a British manufacturer of pottery, and is named after the village of Denby in Derbyshire.
Contents
History
The pottery at Denby was founded on the estate of William Drury-Lowe in 1809 as a manufacturer of stoneware bottles.[1] It was run by Joseph Jager in partnership with Robert Charles George Brohier. The partnership was dissolved in 1814.[1] By this time,clay from a deposit on the land was already in use at the Belper Pottery. At the beginning of 1815 until 1836 when William Bourne of the Belper Pottery and his sons William, John and Joseph 21year lease ran out on Brohier and Jager's factory.[2] Joseph Bourne ran the works at Denby and Belper in tandem until 1834. In that year he closed down the Belper pottery and moved its equipment and workforce to Denby. Bourne later took over the Codnor Park and Shipley Potteries, and merged them into the Denby works in a similar manner. Joseph Bourne took his son Joseph Harvey Bourne into partnership, and the company became known as Joseph Bourne and Sons, a name it kept even after the death of Joseph Bourne in 1860.
Using a new patent process for drying slip invented by Needham and Kite of Vauxhall, the pottery produced at least 25 tons of workable clay each day. In the nineteenth century, most of the ware produced was salt-glazed stoneware. Bourne patented improved kilns for stoneware in 1823 and 1848.[3] The pottery produced a wide range of utilitarian stoneware products including telegraph insulators, ink bottles, pickle and marmalade jars, spirit and liquor bottles, foot warmers, churns, mortars and pestles, pipkins, feeding-bottles, pork-pie moulds, druggists' shop-jars, snuff-jars,spirit-barrels, pudding-moulds, and water filters. More decoratively they also made "hunting jugs" sprigged with moulded decorations of huntsmen, windmills, men smoking or beehives; sometimes the handle woud be in the form of a greyhound. They also produced terracotta goods, both practical and decorative.[4]
The company benefited greatly from its transport links into Derby and beyond, particularly when the Midland Railway opened its Ripley Branch. It had a siding at Denby Wharf (the terminus of the Little Eaton Gangway) approximately opposite to the factory. Each week around three or four vans would be dispatched to Chaddesden sidings (near Derby station) where they would be connected to an express to St Pancras in London and the company's warehouse at the Granary.[5]
The company, whose name is now principally associated with stoneware, initially produced bottles and jars, before specialising in kitchenware and, eventually, in tableware, for which it is best known today.
In 1987 the company was taken over by the Coloroll Group. After Coloroll went into receivership in 1990, Denby was subject to a management buyout, and was floated in 1994.[6]
In recent years, Denby has expanded its use of materials to include glass (wine glasses, tumblers and bowls), metal (cutlery and cooking utensils). In a revolutionary move, Denby has also introduced fine dining ranges in fine porcelain and bone china. These additions to the range feature little or no colour and decoration, in contrast to most of the stoneware ranges, which Denby continues to produce in strong colours and intricate designs.
References
- ^ a b The notice of dissolution refers to " the Partnership hereforeto carried on by the undersigned, Robert Charles George Brohier, and Joseph Jager, as Stone Bottle-Manufacturers, and otherwise, at a place called Jagersburgh, in the Parish of Denby, in the County of Derby, under the stile or firm of Brohier & Jager...""London Gazette". http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/16946/pages/2059. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
- ^ "Derbyshire Record Office Online Catalogue". http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/applications/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqServer=V-AP02&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo=='D3147/1/6'). Retrieved 1 July 2011.
- ^ "Derbyshire Record Office Online Catalogue". http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/applications/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqServer=V-AP02&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=NaviTree.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqItem=D3147/2&dsqField=RefNo. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
- ^ Jewitt, Llewellyn (1878). The Ceramic Art of Great Britain. 2. p. 133.
- ^ Sprenger, Howard (2009). Rails to Ripley. Southampton: Kestrel. ISBN 9781905505166.
- ^ "Directors make a fortune from ruins of Coloroll". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/directors-make-a-fortune-from-ruins-of-coloroll-denby-pottery-ready-to-go-public-in-pounds-40m-flotation-1372411.html. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
Bibliography
Hopewood, Irene. Denby pottery, 1809-1997: dynasties and designers (ISBN 0903685523)
External links
Categories:- Ceramics manufacturers of the United Kingdom
- Companies established in 1809
- Companies based in Derbyshire
- 1809 establishments in England
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