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White Salt-Glazed Stoneware of the British Isles
Diana Edwards and Rodney Hampson Antique Collectors' Club, 45 [pounds sterling] ISBN 1 85149 4804
Hilary Young praises the way that the formidable difficulties confronting the study of white salt-glazed stoneware have been tackled--if not wholly overcome--in this comprehensive study White Salt-Glazed Stoneware of the British Isles
White salt-glazed stoneware was one of the most important ceramic products of eighteenth-century England. It was relatively cheap to produce, extremely durable and white-bodied, and hence able to rival the porcelains imported from China--on the tables of the 'middling classes' at least. First made in England by John Dwight in Fulham during the 1680s, it was then taken up in the 1710s by Staffordshire potters, who soon after made the key innovation of mixing calcined flint in roughly equal measure with white-firing clay.
This combination of materials was one of two major technical developments that transformed the Staffordshire industry, as it enabled the large-scale production of finely potted teawares and tablewares--first in salt-glaze and subsequently in creamware--that won Staffordshire enthusiastic markets both at home and abroad. Manufacture of white 'flintware' rapidly spread to other parts of the country, but north Staffordshire remained overwhelmingly the most important centre of production.