Watermonkey (left) and jug, majolica glaze with fern-leaf decoration, designed by William Holford,
attributed to Lithgow Pottery c 1882

Everything old becomes new again. Well, maybe not everything, but it is a fact that we are now beginning to respond to work made in Australian potteries more than 100 years ago.

It is generally believed that Australia has no history of successful commercial potteries producing tableware and therefore no ceramic traditions to follow, such as the traditions of the Japanese and Koreans, the English commercial and studio potteries or the major European ceramic factories, such as Sevres and the Danish, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. In fact there were many attempts to establish such potteries in Australia and a few of them survived well into the 20th century, but with competition from Europe, essentially the British ceramic factories, low tariffs and the prejudice of the colonialists for fine china imports, the going was always tough.
Australian potteries concentrated on more basic items using the local earthenware to make everyday domestic ware: teapots, jugs, water filters, carafe or water monkey, cheese cover and plate, flower pots, money boxes and bread plates in all sorts of designs. These were made from moulds, slip cast and with a range of glazes that were common to most of the potteries of the time: Rockingham, Bristol green, majolica, blue glaze. There were also stoneware bottles and storage jars and foot warmers which were salt glazed.

William Holford was a master mould maker. His distinctive designs included a pre-Federation Australian coat of arms, fern leaves, ear of wheat and a bouquet of Australian plants and leaves which became known as the Premier pattern. Holford trained in Staffordshire, worked at the Minton Pottery at Stoke on Trent, travelled to New Zealand and moved to Australia two years later in 1876. He worked for a year at the Lithgow Pottery in NSW where he made his distinctive moulds for a range of slip cast earthenwares before moving on to Sydney and later Adelaide, working in various potteries and establishing his own pottery with his son Thomas. The last of these potteries was wound up in 1909.

There were always financial problems. “The final blow for the Holfords came when a large order for toilet pans was cancelled after a considerable number had been produced. The Adelaide company which had placed the order purchased them cheaper from overseas. The Holfords received no money and could not stand the loss,” Geoff Ford writes in the 26 page catalogue that accompanies the exhibition.

Ford, with his wife Kerrie, is the owner/director of the National Museum of Pottery at Wodonga, Australia’s first museum dedicated to 19th and early 20th century Australian pottery. He has curated the exhibition: William Holford’s Art & Design – Influence on Australian Pottery, selecting 51 items which track Holford’s career with examples of his work and work by other potters and potteries influenced by him. The exhibition opened in Gippsland Art Gallery in June 2003 and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, August - November, 2003. It begins its 2004 tour at Wollongong Art Gallery on March 5.

In his introduction for the catalogue Ford writes of his interest in 19th and early 20th century Australian potters which led to the establishment the National Museum of Australian Pottery in 1995 and to the writing of a number of books, including Australian Pottery: The First 100 Years. Ford writes: “The most interesting and artistic potter to work in Australia during this period was the talented modeller, mould maker, potter and glazer, William Holford. His love of producing colourfully glazed decorative domestic pottery pieces, many decorated with fern leaves, ears of wheat, fuschias, cows, plaited rope… was surpassed only by his skill in producing the plaster of Paris moulds.”

These skills were carried from pottery to pottery, with many of the moulds left behind and many copied, in particular the Premier pattern on window boxes, jardinières and flower pots. Holford set up two potteries in Sydney: Phoenix Pottery and later his own Standard Pottery in Longueville. Here William and Thomas built kilns, made moulds for the usual domestic range of pottery and dug their clay from a gully at the end of the paddock. Later an exhibition was organised with participation from several potteries on the North Shore. The Governor, Lord Carrington, opened the exhibition and his wife later ordered a pair of green jar-vases from “Messrs W. Holford and Son”.

Despite their success in Sydney the family decided to move to Adelaide where once again, after employment in several potteries, they set up a family pottery, initially called the London Pottery Works and later the Adelaide Pottery Company. But the potteries continued to suffer financial difficulties. Ford writes: “The trouble William encountered was what most of his previous employers had found: the slip-cast or press-moulded decorative majolica glazed tableware was very difficult to sell. William was forced to abandon his love of producing these and increase the range and production of basic domestic and commercial wares in order to earn a living.”
For years he had been lobbying the Royal Commission on Customs and Tariffs to increase the duty on ceramic imports, citing higher costs for labour and materials and the dumping of surplus and old stock in Australia by foreign makers. All that and the continuing prejudice against the local product by consumers and distributors.

A point is made by John Wade in Australiana magazine (August 2003 Vol. 25 No. 3. p.114) that although there certainly was a lot of foreign competition, there was however “a limited pool of potters isolated from new ideas and skills producing a style of pottery that was basically unchanged over several generations.” In doing so, “they may also have sown the seeds of their demise.”

Grace Cochrane, Senior Curator, Australian Decorative Arts and Design at the Powerhouse Museum, told Wade: “It is rare to see collected together so many items that can be identified as associated with one of those often anonymous designers and artisans.” This, I think, is the point of Ford’s interest in these potters and potteries, in particular, William Holford. As a superior craftsman with extraordinary artistic talents as a modeller, mould maker, potter and glazer, Ford identifies a genuine artist in an industry that recognised only employed artisans.

And in such an industry copying shapes and designs and glazes was a common practice as this exhibition shows. It was also an inexpensive practice for the pottery owners.

Ford tells a wonderful story of Jack Gare, a glaze preparer and dipper at the Bendigo Pottery. Gare had developed a red terracotta clay slip in 1915, which became known as the Langley ware glaze. “In 1916 he was called before the company directors who instructed him to surrender a copy of his glaze recipe. Glare refused and so he was dismissed.”
This did not stop him gathering together a number of decorative pieces from Bendigo Pottery and taking them with him to establish his own pottery at Castlemaine. Ford says: “Gare took plaster moulds off Bendigo jardinières and bread plates which he reproduced and finished them in his Langley glaze ware”. Gare obviously considered his talents as a glaze preparer gave him a certain status. This was an era long before studio pottery and long before potters were able to call themselves ceramic artists and receive just recognition for their talents.

We still do not have ceramic factories in Australia making tableware on the scale of major factories around the world because the situation on tariffs and the importing of reduced labour cost ceramics from Asia and elsewhere continues unabated. What we have instead are potters capable of making quality domestic ware for a specialist market - perhaps the very class of people who once shunned the local product in favour of imports.

And this is why we are just now beginning to respond to the work of this period. For so long we have ignored this heritage, looking instead East and West for inspiration. After a long period of minimalist ceramics these richly patterned and coloured forms have a certain appeal. They are part of our history if not tradition. We may not be able to reproduce the Bristol green, Rockingham, blue, majolica and lead glazes of the period but their exuberance remains enticing.

It has only been in recent years that Australian potters have shown the confidence to research this early period in Australia’s pottery history. For example, Pam Sinnot referred to the early Lithgow Pottery bread plates in her 2001 exhibition, “Give us this Day”. The original text in early English read, Give us this Day our Daily Bread. Sinnot says: “I subverted the original text to now read: Give us this Day our Daily Labour.” (Ceramics: Art and Perception No. 54, p.71) Janna Ferris’s white earthenware carrot cups and asparagus plates, moulded and glazed in a dark green midfire glaze have something of the character of Halford’s domestic ware.
There are many other ceramic artists, Patsy Hely, Toni Warburton and Susan Ostling to name a few, who have taken the time to research their work and to show a particular interest in early Australian ceramics, their forms, decoration and production, as cultural artifacts and their place in Australia’s heritage.

The exhibition is supported by the Northcote Pottery and the Bendigo Pottery, Victoria.