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| Find out how to discover the history of a building that no longer exists. Join Cliff Howe as he searches for evidence of the types of pottery produced at the Canney Hill pottery and the people who worked them. |  Products from the Canney Hill Pottery
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The pottery was founded in the mid-1840s, at a time when the area was becoming heavily industrialised. It flourished during Queen Victoria's reign, but in the early 20th century gradually became unprofitable and closed in 1913.
'... all the evidence had to come from two sources: either written records ... or from the pieces of pottery ...'
During its peak period of output, it probably employed no more than 25 men, girls and boys. In the early years, the men came mainly from Derbyshire and south Yorkshire, while the young workers were recruited either from the potters' families, or from the local population.
Today there is no trace on the ground to show that there was ever a pottery there, so this meant that all the evidence had to come from two sources: either written records (both printed and in manuscript) and maps; or from the pieces of pottery produced at the works.
I wanted to discover who built the Pottery and why it was erected at Canney Hill; why men from Derbyshire and south Yorkshire had gone to work there; what sort of products they had made; how long the pottery had survived; and how successful it was.
It is essential when starting a local history project to have some understanding of the chosen subject and to realise its context in the local and regional area. Knowing very little about the craft of pottery making or where local potteries were located, I explored both these subjects in published books in Stockton Library.
'... I found that some local people did have recollections of the Pottery.'
Focussing on the small country potteries of the north and the north Midlands, I began reading what had already been written about them in the journals and bulletins of interested societies [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#1] . I visited three surviving examples of potteries to see what Canney Hill may have looked like. One of these at Wetheriggs, near Penrith, was probably quite similar to Canney Hill and gave me a good idea what it must have been like to work there.
There were stories of grandparents collecting pieces of broken pottery to play games with, while at the Methodist Chapel at Coundon Gate some items used in the kitchen were said to have been made there. These included a large teapot which has survived and is now in Beamish Museum.
I had been researching my family history for many years and had also taken a course on 'Sources for Local Historians' at the local Technical College. These activities meant that I knew my way around record offices and archives and was aware of the many sources that could be useful in tracking down information about the Pottery.
'It was not unusual for men from other counties to be working as coal miners in the area ...'
There were fairly obvious ones such as census returns and parish records to provide information about people, and others that are used less frequently by local historians. Electoral rolls [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#3] can be especially useful for finding people when researching the 20th century, a period for which census returns are not yet available.
Rating lists [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#4] can provide information on the value of property, and enable the researcher to spot changes in usage. My previous experience allowed me to interpret and understand these sources, and to use them to follow clues along the discovery trail.
Seeing the pottery workers listed in the returns for Coundon and Canney Hill intrigued me, because I noticed that they were not local men. It was not unusual for men from other counties to be working as coal miners in the area, but 'outsiders' making pottery in this corner of County Durham was surprising. Why had they done this and what was their story?
So the project sprang to life and I decided to find out more about the Pottery and its history. Luckily, my career as a research chemist had given me a good grounding in following trails of investigation; although I had some clues, a decision had to be reached on what to do next.
I realised that the Pottery was as much a part of the history of my 'home village' as the collieries and the ancient fields, and I felt a real excitement in following an historical trail which I knew nobody had done before.
My first task was to find out more about the pottery itself - who built it and when, and why at Canney Hill? The 1844 Tithe map and schedule [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#6] for Coundon Township told me who had owned and occupied the land on which the Pottery was built, but it was the Manorial records [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#7] which provided the vital information about the subsequent ownership of the land.
'A search of the 1851 census returns found Welsh lodging at the Bull's Head in Darlington ...'
I was then able to reconstruct the sequence of events leading up to the erection of the Pottery in the later 1840s, its acquisition by John Cooper and subsequent transfers of ownership into the early 20th century. The manorial records indicated that a man named John Welsh was the original purchaser of the land where the Pottery was built, and was probably its founder.
'... the erection of a new pottery, in particular the ovens and kilns, required the skill and experience of a master potter ...'
The central library near to where Welsh had lived sent me a copy of his obituary from the local newspaper, and this valuable document gave me all the information I required to recreate Welsh's life as an entrepreneur, his journeys to Australia and Tasmania and his later emigration to America where he became a very successful mill owner.
Welsh's background makes it clear that he was an enterprising man, always on the lookout for ways of making money, and he probably saw an opportunity to make some at Canney Hill. He had no knowledge of pottery making, and the erection of a new pottery, in particular the ovens and kilns, required the skill and experience of a master potter, a man like John Cooper, so Welsh provided the money for the land and buildings, while Cooper provided the expertise. The story of the Canney Hill Pottery and the people connected with it was now becoming much clearer.
My next step was to look at all the census returns from 1851 to 1891, extracting the names of everybody who might have worked in the Pottery, while other names were added from local parish records [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#8] .
'I appealed to the Derbyshire Family History Societies for information ...'
One important 'find' from 1851 was a pottery model-maker from Staffordshire lodging in Bishop Auckland, confirmation perhaps that the Pottery was making decorative objects. The census returns gave details of the pottery workers and recorded their and their children's birthplaces and ages.
From this information, it was possible to follow their movements before arriving at Canney Hill and to discover where they had gained their experience. I was particularly interested in the principal character in this story, John Cooper, who was owner of the pottery for a substantial part of its life. I discovered that he had co-owned a pottery in Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, and before that he worked in Bradford.
Knowing he was born in Chesterfield, I appealed to the Derbyshire Family History Societies [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#9] for information, and was soon contacted by Lionel Exford, a descendant of Cooper's elder brother, Henry Cooper, who had also worked at Canney Hill.
Lionel was able to give me valuable information on potteries in the Chesterfield area, and to share his knowledge of the Cooper family. Another Cooper brother had emigrated to Australia where it's possible he may have met John Welsh and told him of the family's interest in pottery but no evidence of this was ever found.
During the project, I did a lot of work at the Durham County Record Office and local libraries. For example, I examined the 1850 Poor Law rate book for Coundon, the electoral rolls covering the period of the Pottery's existence, and the Valuation List for 1911.
'Maps and plans can often provide important confirmatory evidence ...'
These sources gave crucial information about the owners of the Pottery, how it was sub-let at a later phase in its life and the date of its closure, which I discovered was 1913. I also worked in the Billingham Family History Library of the Church of Latter Day Saints where I was lucky to be able to study census returns and parish records from outside County Durham.
I made contact with a couple from York who had written about other small country potteries in County Durham and learned that most of them had been short-lived enterprises, going under because the rapidly expanding rail network was bringing cheap pottery from Staffordshire.
Maps and plans can often provide important confirmatory evidence, especially when the project involves industrial history. Among those I looked at were tithe maps of the 1840s, a mid-18th century plan of coal mines in the Canney Hill area; a plan of a proposed extension to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which showed more detail of the Pottery than the contemporary Ordnance Survey [/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_fact_file.shtml#10] plan; and the three Ordnance Survey plans which covered the period of the Pottery's life.
Aerial photographs taken by the Royal Air Force in 1948 showed that the Pottery site had been roughly covered with topsoil.
This, I believe, was the reason why the Pottery survived until 1913, despite the overwhelming competition from Staffordshire. Production of flowerpots for the Bishop's glasshouses and chimney pots helped the cash flow, but it was the more specialised pieces that kept the enterprise in business.
'It helped the household budget of many local families.'
The Pottery also gave a limited opportunity for women to find work - few servants were employed in mining communities, and local employment for girls and women was otherwise scarce. It helped the household budget of many local families.
There is some evidence that larger quantities of earthenware products were exported further afield in crates and that Coundon Station which opened in 1885 was used as a depot for returning empties.
I wrote up my findings as an article for the Durham County Local History Society Bulletin, and am fully satisfied that I achieved the targets laid out when starting this project. There are obviously still gaps to be filled in, but local historians soon become aware that total recovery of a story from the past is not always possible either because of limited, or missing, source material.
However, I am proud to have been involved with recording the chronicle of this little-known industrial endeavour, and hope that the Canney Hill Pottery can now take its well-earned place in history.
Published on BBC History: 2005-03-03
This article can be found on the Internet at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/local_history/industry/history_of_pottery_01.shtml
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