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…
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.
When Armitage introduced the world’s first coloured sanitary ware in 1927, it transformed bathroom design. Using rare surviving colour samples, this article traces the evolution of the company’s distinctive colour range, explains how salesmen used these samples to market Armitage products, and explores the changing fashions that shaped British bathrooms from the 1930s onwards.
When divers explored the wreck of the Josephine Willis in the English Channel, they uncovered an extraordinary cargo of pottery destined for New Zealand—including a beautifully decorated water closet made at Armitage in the 1850s. The discovery sheds new light on Robert Hedderwick Penman, his short-lived pottery partnership and the company’s early export trade.
An unusual recruitment advert led to a surprising discovery about how Edward Johns & Co. helped shape the language of the bathroom. Company bulletins from the 1930s reveal why “lavatory” disappeared from its catalogues, why “washbasin” took its place, and how the firm debated the best name for the humble W.C.
