The industrial history of Armitage and Handsacre, including pottery manufacture, Armitage Shanks, coal mining, local businesses and the people who worked in these industries.
The history of Armitage Pottery cannot be told through a single story. It has influenced the village, provided employment for generations of families, developed products known throughout the world and shaped the lives of countless individuals. Some of those stories fit naturally into the narrative of the company’s history. Others are smaller episodes, remarkable discoveries…
For fifty years Ken and Alan Stott worked side by side, guiding the Armitage pottery from a successful family business to Britain’s largest sanitary ware manufacturer. This article explores the brothers’ unique partnership, their service beyond the factory, and the practical common sense that enabled them to recognise opportunities, create new markets and leave a lasting legacy in British industry.
Between Edward Johns and the Stott brothers stood Edmund Corn, the driving force behind Armitage Ware. Potter, innovator and businessman, he guided the company through war, depression and industrial unrest while introducing new production methods, developing overseas markets and helping create the world’s first coloured sanitary ware suites. Under his leadership the Armitage name became known around the world, laying the foundations for the later success of Armitage Shanks.
Builder of the New Pottery, exporter of sanitary ware and founder of Glasgow’s “Armitage Pottery”, Robert Hedderwick Penman was one of the most ambitious figures in Armitage’s industrial history. His factory vanished, but “Penman’s Works” remained in local memory long after the man himself had crossed the Atlantic.
When Edward Lewis Williamson Johns inherited the Armitage pottery in 1893, he chose a different path from his father. Rather than expanding production, he championed fashionable and highly decorative sanitary ware. His brief ownership produced some of the pottery’s most striking designs before the business passed from family ownership in 1900.
Bankruptcy did not bring Thomas Bond’s story to an end. Beginning again in 1819, he rebuilt his life as a brickmaker, establishing a successful business in Handsacre that supported his growing family for many years. This concluding article follows Bond’s remarkable recovery after financial ruin, revealing how determination and enterprise enabled one of Armitage’s earliest industrial pioneers to secure a lasting place in the parish’s history.
Imprisonment for debt might have ended Thomas Bond’s ambitions, but instead it marked the beginning of a determined attempt to rebuild his fortunes. Returning to Armitage, he revived his malting and brickmaking businesses while expanding into pottery manufacture. Despite energy and enterprise, financial pressures continued to mount, culminating in bankruptcy. This second part of Bond’s story reveals both the risks of early nineteenth-century business and the uncertain beginnings of Armitage’s pottery industry.
For decades the origins of Armitage Pottery appeared well understood. Yet newly available documents, forgotten newspaper reports and surviving estate records reveal a more complicated picture. By piecing together the evidence, this article explores who established the pottery, how it developed and why its earliest history has been misunderstood.
Thomas Bond is generally credited with founding Armitage’s first pottery, but his story began long before pottery became his livelihood. Maltster, brickmaker, canal carrier and entrepreneur, he pursued a succession of ambitious ventures while navigating debt, failed partnerships and imprisonment. Drawing on newly available documentary evidence, this article explores the remarkable life of the man whose enterprise marked the beginning of Armitage’s pottery industry.
At just thirteen years old, Jack Smith left school to become a pit pony driver at Brick Kiln Colliery near Brereton. Through his story, this article recreates the demanding daily routine of boys who worked underground, the vital role played by the pit ponies and the harsh realities of coal mining in the early twentieth century. It ends with the tragic accident that claimed Jack’s life when he was only seventeen.
