The death of Hannah Waltho in 1791 left her family dependent on parish support, but the story did not end there. Overseers paid for her funeral, investigated her husband’s remarriage and eventually apprenticed William and Jane to begin new lives. Their story reveals both the hardships and the opportunities created by the Old Poor Law.
When Hannah Greatrix was widowed in 1750, the law decided where she and her baby belonged. Forced to leave Yoxall and move to Armitage, perhaps to a village she barely knew, her story reveals how the Old Poor Law’s settlement rules could shape the lives of ordinary families, regardless of their own wishes.
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.
The site you’re looking at used to be a ford, forming part of Old Road. The stream is called Shropshire Brook, or sometimes ‘Dummy’s’ Brook after a local resident. For centuries this ford carried traffic over the brook to link Armitage and Handsacre. Prior to the construction of New Road, which was originally a Turnpike…
Unlike the rest of St. John the Baptist’s medieval church, the south aisle is entirely Victorian. Built during Henry Ward’s rebuilding of the 1840s, it was carefully designed to harmonise with the Romanesque character of the older church. This article explores how Norman-inspired architecture, the remarkable south doorway and later additions combined to create one of the most successful parts of the rebuilding.
The north aisle preserves the strongest impression of St. John the Baptist’s Norman origins. Although rebuilt by Henry Ward in the 1840s, its heavy round arches, massive pillars and Romanesque character echo the medieval church described by Stebbing Shaw. This article explores the aisle’s architectural development and its later transformation into a place of remembrance, where the history of the church and the parish meet.
