In 1741, porcelain with its new name attachment, “China,” is all the rage in both England and the colonies. However, the average middle-class person could not afford such luxury as the cost has been inflated through shipping costs. Thankfully the potters in Staffordshire, England took it amongst themselves to create and sell creamware, which became ever so popular in the domestic house until the 1840s. In this time period, only one aesthetic change happened to result in pearlware. This exploration in archaeology will dive deep into both creamware and pearlware while exploring how extremely similar they are as well as their one main difference, all with the focus on the decoration styles that most similarly look like porcelain china. After this exploration takes place, an in-depth look into three articles that all discuss either creamware, pearlware, or both.
History of Creamware
In 1740 Enoch Booth introduced a cream-bodied refined earthenware, to the colonies, that was soon being manufactured by many potters in Great Britain, including Thomas Whieldon and Josiah Wedgwood (Noël Hume pgs:204, 209; Towner 1957 pg:2). These early wares were usually painted in underglaze blue in reserve panels against a speckled manganese ground, reminiscent of motifs and styles used on tin-glazed earthenwares. Archaeologists, when categorizing, often lump cream-colored earthenwares covered with rich green glazes or with mottled metallic oxides (clouded and tortoiseshell wares) together with creamwares.
In 1762, Wedgwood introduced a clear lead-glazed cream-colored ware that became known as creamware, which he, and soon other potters, called by the trade name “Queen’s Ware” (Buten pg:17). Creamware with a colorless glaze quickly became a popular design in tea and tablewares and was found in most homes throughout England and the British colonies. The four patterns that are prevalent in creamware are Queen’s shape, royal shape, feather edge and shell edge. Various techniques like underglaze painting, overglaze printing, and trim molding were used to decorate these cream-colored wares. A great majority of creamwares from 1770 to the turn of the nineteenth century were in molded patterns without the addition of color decoration. From the 1780s to the end of the War of 1812, plain creamware (known as “CC” by potters and merchants) dominated the ceramic market (Miller and Hunter pg:110).
By now creamware and other Staffordshire ceramic types were being produced in the American colonies, as well as continental Europe. Potter John Bartlam was making creamware by 1771 in South Carolina, manufacturing green-glazed wares, cauliflower, pineapple and melon wares, clouded and tortoiseshell wares, as well as the more common molded rim motifs. His enterprise continued until his death in 1781 and was a cause of concern for Josiah Wedgwood (South pg:4). Creamware was also produced at Wachovia which is located in North Carolina.
Development of Creamware. Creamware is the name given to a type of earthenware pottery which is made from white clays from Dorset and Devonshire combined with an amount of calcined flint. This body is the same as that used for salt-glazed stoneware, but it is fired to a lower temperature (around 800 °C as opposed to 1,100 to 1,200 °C) and glazed with lead to form a cream-coloured earthenware (Towner 1978 pg:19). The white clays ensured a fine body and the addition of flint improved its resistance to thermal shock during firing, whilst flint added to the glaze helped prevent crazing (Elliot pgs:9-13).
Creamware was first produced sometime before 1740. Originally lead powder or galena, mixed with a certain amount of ground calcined flint, was dusted on the ware, which was then given its one and only firing. This early method was unsatisfactory because lead powder produced poisoning among the potters and the grinding of flint stones caused a disease known as potter’s rot (Towner 1978 pg:20).
Around 1740 a fluid glaze in which the ingredients were mixed and ground in water was invented, possibly by Enoch Booth of Tunstall, Staffordshire, according to one early historian, although this is disputed (Hildyard pg:82). The method involved first firing the ware to a biscuit state, and then glazing and re-firing it.
Foremost of the pioneers of creamware in the Staffordshire Potteries was Thomas Whieldon. Although he has become popularly associated almost exclusively with tortoiseshell creamware, in fact, he produced a wide variety of creamware. He first mentions ‘Cream Colour’ in 1749 (Towner 1978 pg:20).
The young Josiah Wedgwood was in partnership with Thomas Whieldon from 1754 to 1759 and after Wedgwood had left to set up independently at Ivy House, he immediately directed his efforts to the development of creamware (Hildyard pg:80).
Wedgwood rebelled against the use of colored glazes, declaring as early as 1766 that he was clearing his warehouse of colored ware as he was ‘heartily sick of the commodity’ (Halfpenny pgs:14-19).
Wedgwood improved creamware by introducing china-clay into both the body and glaze and so was able to produce creamware of a much paler color, lighter and stronger and more delicately worked, perfecting the ware by about 1770. His superior creamware, known as ‘Queen’s ware’, was supplied to Queen Charlotte and Catherine the Great and later became hugely popular (Towner 1978 pg:21). There were few changes to creamware after about 1770 and the Wedgwood formula was gradually adopted by most manufacturers.
Works Cited
- Buten, David. 18th-Century Wedgwood; a Guide for Collectors and Connoisseurs (1980). Main Street Press, Pittstown, NJ.
- Elliot, Gordon. “The Technical Characteristics of Creamware and Pearl-Glazed Earthenware,” in Creamware and Pearlware (1986). The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery.
- Halfpenny, Pat. “Early Creamware to 1770,” in Creamware and Pearlware (1986). The Fifth Exhibition from the Northern Ceramic Society. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery.
- Hildyard, Robin. English Pottery 1620 – 1840 (2005). London: Victoria & Albert Museum.
- Miller, George, and Robert R. Hunter Jr. English Shell Edged Earthenwares: Alias Leeds Ware, Alias Feather Edge (1990). Paper presented to the 35th Annual Wedgwood International Seminar.
- Noël Hume, Ivor. If These Pots Could Talk: Collecting 2000 Years of British Household Pottery (2001). Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, WI.
- South, Stanley. John Bartlam: Staffordshire in Carolina (2004). South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology Research Manuscript Series 231. University of South Carolina, Columbia.
- Towner, Donald. Creamware (1978). Faber and Faber, London.
- Towner, Donald C. English Cream-Coloured Earthenware (1957). Faber and Faber, London.