AFFORDABLE ANTIQUES(BRETBY POTTERY)
G.D. Newton - Wade.
Bretby Art Pottery. Anyone who has taken an interest in Bretby Art Pottery
will already know how difficult it is to find information about dating
and identification. Should anyone have items that they would like to have
dated or identified, please email me and I will try to help.
For those who have never come across Bretby Art Pottery, they are the last
remaining affordable antiques and you would be well advised to buy their wares
now as they like Charlotte Rhead, Clarice Cliffe, Shelley and now even Shorter
are becoming more and more costly and difficult to find.
Bretby Art Pottery.
Henry Tooth was born in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire in 1842.
Having little formal education and after a variety of occupations, he was
employed in London as a theatrical scene painter. He later settled in the
Isle of White and worked as an ecclesiastical and domestic decorator,
specialising in stained and painted glass. It was here that he met Dr
Christopher Dresser who persuaded him to become an art potter. Tooth
had no practical experience and spent three months with T. G. Green &
Co. in Church Gresley where he studied pottery methods. It was after this
that he took up the post of manager of Linthorpe Pottery which he helped
to set up on the site of the Sun Brick Works in the village of Linthorpe. It
is possible that the Sun Brick Works may have been the inspiration for the
famous Bretby sun mark which was registered as a trade mark in 1884.
Tooth had studied chemistry in connection with his stained glass work and
he applied this knowledge to developing the Linthorpe glazes. Tooth
eventualy left Linthorpe in 1882 to found his own pottery.
Bretby Art Pottery came into existence after Henry Tooth had induced Mr
T. G. Green, from whom he had received brief training, to spare him a kiln
and a small workshop for preliminary work. Here he produced the first
models of the now famous Bretby Ware and in 1883 Bretby Art Pottery
was founded by Henry Tooth and William Ault at T. G. Green’s works at
Church Gresley. These were initially makeshift premises and in 1885 the
company moved to Woodville occupying the site of an old brickyard
works it was around this time the firm advertised “Bretby Ware - A High
Class Decorative Pottery, Rich and Harmonious in Colour, Artistic in
Form and Treatment and moderate in price”. This partnership lasted only
five years after which William Ault moved to Swadlincote to start William
Ault & Co. but the business continued as Henry Tooth & Co. (Ltd) with
the financial assistance of John Downing Wragg.
Linthorpe closed in 1889 and both Ault and Tooth bought many of the
moulds including some which had been designed by Cristopher Dresser.
Bretby Ware soon established itsef as a reasonably priced artistic ware. In
1903 Tooth was assisted by his son and daughter. By 1912 J. D. Wragg
left the partnership and Tooth & Co. Ltd was registered with a capital
£6000 in £1 shares with Henry Tooth and his son being the first directors.
His son, W. E. Tooth took over as manager in 1914 and held this post
until 1926 after which it was managed by W. F. Nickels and his sons,
although Henry Tooths daughters sons were active in the running of the
firm.
In 1933 Fred Parker acquired the firm and the family still own the firm
today. The works were closed during the Second World War and full
production started again in 1947. It was said that Neville Chamberlain
presented Hitler with a Bretby jug in the shape of George VII during his
famous visit to Munich in 1938. The jug had a musical box attached
which played the national anthem when lifted, and Hitler allegedly
instructed that it was to be taken to the air raid shelter during alerts!