Made in England

IN JULY, the Made in England mosaic was unveiled at the Potteries Museum. Its website is a rich resource of potteries history and reference material. Here, with kind permission from artist Emma Biggs, we bring you some extracts of the site. Explore more at www.made-in-england.net

Margaret (Mary) Dean initially worked as a paintress and subsequently as a forewoman at WH Grindley’s Woodland Pottery in Tunstall – now the site of Asda. She worked there almost exclusively from 1928 until the mid eighties, and gives a vivid picture of the times.

‘I WAS born in the Potteries in 1914. As children we would play in the Goldenhill area of Stoke-on-Trent. There were broken pots in heaps all around us. We would make a ‘poppy show’ of colourful bits we found – piecing the bits together and polishing them.

My mother worked at Alfred Meakin in Tunstall, but stopped when she had children. My father was in the pits at Kidsgrove, until a blow to the eye accidentally blinded him. Back in those days, it wasn’t uncommon for families to look forward to, or even depend on, the money their children could bring in once they left school. I started work at the Lingard and Webster pottery when I was fourteen years old

Jobs were hard to find in the late 1920s. If you had a seven-year apprenticeship as I did, you did not have much to take home. From every ten shillings you made, one shilling was deducted to pay for the apprenticeship. After a year I moved from Lingard and Webster to WH Grindley, where I completed the term of the apprenticeship in 1935.
I wanted the job at Grindley’s, so I turned up one day in my smartest clothes and asked for an interview with the manager, which took a lot of confidence. Both my aunts worked there. After some discussion the General Manager asked for my father’s name and said he would contact him. I got the job.

Life in the decorating department was busy and enjoyable. Grindley’s made earthenware for export. Most of it went to Canada. Our job was to decorate tea-sets. Changes in the designs were mostly about the width of the applied lines. Sometimes a project would come in, a teapot for example, and I would work on it with another girl. We were paid piece-rates – per piece completed. Some worked more quickly than others but quality of workmanship was critical.

Often the girls would talk to pass the time of day. Sometimes they sang. One girl – Elsie -- sang for a local chapel, and if we were in need of a pick-me-up we’d ask her to give us a song and we would all join in. Elsie was a lovely character. I had another friend -- Maud – who used to tell us all about the struggles of her daily life.

The job changed over the years. In the early days it was tough carrying ware to the kiln – it could weigh half a hundred-weight. We transported it on our shoulders on five-foot long boards. Women worked in the decorating departments, other departments were almost exclusively male. We bought our brushes and knives from a traveling man who visited the factory now and then. It wasn’t until after the war that we no longer had to buy them ourselves. They were made from camel hair and cost a lot of money.
When I started in 1928 I was paid 5/9 per week – five shillings and ninepence. Twopence was paid to charity. A penny went to Dr Barnados to help the orphans. I’m not sure where the other penny went. I had a rise in wages after the war and by 1948 I earned £3.50 per week.