 Hello everyone, I'm Patricia Ferguson and I work as a project curator on European 18th century ceramics at the British Museum in the department of Britain, Europe and free history. I'm excited to be part of the Paul Mellon Centre's public lecture course on ceramics in Britain 1750 to now, focusing on pottery. This introductory course explores Britain's influential role in the history of ceramics and my talk looks at the invention of creamware and transfer printing and how they were used to promote political agendas during the period 1750 to 1830. But before I begin I would like to thank Helen Ritchie for including me in the program and to Nerman Abdullah for organizing this course. Over the next 30 minutes we're going to look at a group of tablewares and drinking vessels made of earthenware which have been transfer printed with images and text. Some were intended as a driving force for social change while others support various forms of racism behaviors that today are considered morally offensive but at the time considered acceptable. These teapots, mugs and plates decorated political and satirical images chart changes in public opinion from the 1760s when it was the voice of elite white men. Through the 1830s when working-class men and women demanded reform encouraged by revolutions in America and France. Typical of these political messages is this Wedgwood creamware dinner plate once part of a matching table service. It's transfer printed with a picturesque view of the state of the nation taken from a print published in the Westminster magazine in 1778. It represents the economic consequences arising from the inept British government pursuing a disastrous foreign policy during the War of American Independence. The colonists and Europeans including the French, Spanish and Dutch are shown taking advantage of a British cow while the British lion lies sleeping, befouled by a pug dog. The Dutchman milks the natural resources of Britain while France and Spain excitedly hold bowls of Britain's milk and America saws off the cows remaining horn. In the background is the city of Philadelphia which has fallen to the British where two gentlemen Admiral Howe and his brother both British naval officers have fallen asleep following a drinking binge. The image depicts the effects of Britain's loss of trade with America which benefited other nations. While the plate unites two great British ceramic innovations the newly perfected creamware a refined cream colored earthenware and the transfer printing process it begs the question who commissioned this table service? Was it for a gentleman's dining club? A matching fragment was excavated from a privy in Philadelphia on the site of Independence Park suggesting a service was sent to America. While we may never know its history given the current state of our nation and the world the subject matter is as relevant today as it was in 1778. Before we survey more of these political pots I want to step back and consider the materiality of creamware its competition and its origins as well as how this British invention has shaped global developments in the ceramic industry. Cream colored earthenware was perfected and popularized but not invented by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1760s as an elegant utilitarian ware. Its success led to the global expansion of the ceramics industry and staffature. Its economic impact was felt by potters in China and Europe and in the Cornish tin industries with a decline in tin glazed earthenware and even pewter production. This mass produced cheap and highly versatile product developed using advanced technology and cheap labor made enormous profits undercutting the competition. It prospered by flooding the markets of Europe and following the inroads made by utilitarian white salt glazed stoneware decades earlier. An earthenware so refined and inexpensive that it crossed the social divide between earthenware and porcelain. To quote Robin Hilliard it was the perfect egalitarian material for an age of revolution and newfound liberty. Until about 1750 luxury ceramics in Britain included imported Chinese and continental porcelain and domestic production in Britain had focused on earthenware using the rich red clays found throughout the country. With the increasing availability of white porcelain British potters were driven to produce whitewares. Tin glazed earthenware or delftware was one such substitute as was white stoneware. In the 1720s salt glazed stoneware began to be produced in staffature made from imported Devon clay and flint that was calcined or burnt and crushed into a white powder. Salt was thrown into the kilns during firing and sodium from the salt reacts with silica in the clay to form a glassy coating which resembles the uneven surface on the skin of an orange. In the 1740s local potters began to experiment with molds made with plaster of Paris. The liquid clay was poured into these molds and the water was quickly absorbed into the plaster of Paris when hardened parts were removed and assembled with liquid slip and fired. The incredibly rich designs imitating raised metalware disguised some of the imperfections in the body the iron specifically. Stoneware tablewares were soon found in almost every British home from the rich to the poor as well as taverns and inns and was soon exported to America and Europe paving the way for mass marketing of the creamware industry. As I said Wedgwood did not invent creamware it evolved slowly but he perfected it and marketed it. Around 1740 Enoch Booth a staffature potter was combining the blended white clay and flint stoneware recipe with the new glaze. A teapot attributed to him is on the left. As with all previous lead glazes it contained iron which resulted in various shades of cream color rather than white. Nearby at Fenton Biddebian the potter Thomas Wielden was making a cream colored ware by 1749 and five years later he took as his apprentice Josiah Wedgwood who worked for him until 1759. Wielden wasn't the only potter and staffature producing a cream colored ware there were also the Warbertons and the Baddlies who shipped wares to Holland and even Russia. This coffee pot in the center is typical of Wielden's production where colorful model glazes hid the creamware body. However it's almost impossible to securely identify the makers of these wares as potters rarely signed their work and they bought master molds from the same sources. However excavations at kilnsights have made it possible to study details such as spouts handles and finials to make attributions. In 1759 at Ivy House in Verslem and Staffordshire Josiah Wedgwood experimented to perfect his pale cream body with its smooth glaze. Initially he named it ivory ware and eventually Queens ware in 1766 when he became potter to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte wife of George III. Such was his success as seen in this elegant dairy pail on the far right that salt-glazed stoneware potters switched to producing creamware and the delft ware industry gradually closed. Wedgwood was one of the few creamware manufacturers to stamp his wares with his name but few others followed him and wares made in Liverpool Yorkshire and elsewhere are almost impossible to identify. Again Wedgwood had succeeded in manufacturing earthenware that was inexpensive and elegant crossing the traditional social divide between earthenware and porcelain democratizing what began as a luxury ware. But before I trace this history I'd like to explain the technical process involved in transfer printing on ceramics. Prints on paper and on ceramics have much in common. Both were produced as mottles. However the term transfer print is specific to the ceramic process because it involves an additional medium or material to transfer the image from the flat rigid copper plate onto the often curved fragile ceramic vessel. The transfer medium was either a fine tissue paper or a glue bat. Printing on paper directly from a copper plate engraved using burins and other tools to form inciselines of various thicknesses to hold the printer's ink may be seen in these objects from a display at Hogarth House in London. Note in particular the letters reversed on the bottom of the copper plate intended for printing directly onto a sheet of paper where they would appear correctly. If this copper plate had been used to transfer an image onto a ceramic body the lettering would appear in reverse because of the process. Consequently Potters commissioned new copper plates with images and letters in reverse and in smaller scale for various sizes for teapots, mugs or plates. Significantly the design was only reversed on the transfer medium the tissue paper or a glue bat. All the printed ceramics in my talk are examples of overglazed printing. The enamel is applied onto the glaze and fired objects. This is the opposite of blue decorated wares where the decoration is applied under the glaze which is the subject of Lord Tyler's upcoming talk. For overglazed printing the earliest transfer medium was a thin sheet of flexible gelatin called a glue bat which is sometimes known as bat printing. Fine paper of course was also used but much less frequently. In the center top of the screen you can see how these small squares of glue bats were prepared. Warm gelatinous animal glue was poured into a soup plate where it was allowed to cool and settle. Then it was cut into squares or rectangles to fit the size of the image engraved onto the copper plate. These images seen here were recorded by Paul Holdway a former design engraver at Spode whose book is on our reading list. The image below illustrates a glue bat lying on a pillow filled with sawdust for support while the printer holds an engraved copper plate. The copper plate has been covered with boiled linseed oil which was white leaving only oil in the recessed areas of the engraving. The linseed may have may have some black ash to tint it otherwise it is invisible. The glue bat is placed on top of the oiled copper plate rubbed and peeled away leaving the ghostly oiled outlines of the image in reverse on the glue bat. The next image depicts a glue bat being peeled away from the surface of a glazed mug leaving a clear oiled outline of the original image. Unlike paper or tissue the glue bat could be easily stretched to fit the curves of a jug or a teapot. The picture at the bottom of the screen illustrates the process of dusting the oiled surface on the mug with a finely powdered pigment usually black from Anganese and cobalt, red from iron or purple from gold. The fine powder adheres only to the sticky oil outlines and the excess is shaken or blown away. The object was then fired at a low temperature of about 750 degrees Celsius which fuses the enamel to the glaze. The market for many of these expensive single sheet prints used by the Potters was the urban upper classes who were often friends or acquaintances with the members of the political and social elite lampooned in satires and caricatures. Amusing and often colorful through and coloring prints were costly and purchased by the wealthy from print shops known as caricature warehouses established in Mayfair in the 1780s. For those not rich enough to afford these graphic works the Metropolitan Print Cellars windows offered free access to these often body and irreverent commentaries on contemporary politics scandal and gossip. We know little of the consumers of these printed ceramics. They may have been purchased by the dozens by publicans owners of taverns located across the major cities. The mugs and jugs offered the same messages as the prints but at a greatly reduced cost. They were used until they were damaged long after their messages were current and then thrown away. Interestingly on the wall above the entrance door on the extreme right is this mezzatint. In this mezzatint there is a well-known print of John Wilkes a controversial politician publisher and satirist who campaigned for basic civil rights but his irreverent behavior frequently brought him into conflict with the authorities. The first secure documentary evidence of transfer printing on ceramics appeared in a patent petitioned in 1751 by an English mezzatint engraver and enameler John Brooks who was at the time based in Birmingham. He described a method of printing, impressing and reversing upon enamel on copper and china from engraved etched and mezzatint plates and wood blocks. Although no example of his early works have been identified it's possible that his technique was soon copied by other printers in Birmingham. This Worcester coffee cup made around 1753 to 6 may have been decorated in Birmingham using his method. The scene of a fortune teller is in the manner of Louis-Philippe Boitard and is similar to a group of prints published in 1754 engraved by Robert Hancock after Boutard's designs. Hancock who had trained in Birmingham later worked at Worcester as their in-house engraver. By late 1753 Brooks was in London at York House Battersea a manufacturer in partnership with a Mr. Delamaine and Alderman Stephen Theodore Jensen a stationer and merchant who financed the business until his own bankruptcy in 1756 shut it down. The Battersea manufacturer was a decorating studio printing and painting on enamelware and ceramics including Salt Glaze stoneware, Delftware tiles and Chinese porcelain which they purchased from other manufacturers and retailers. These Staffordshire Salt Glaze stoneware plates were perhaps produced at Battersea before it closed based on fragments found during excavations in the late 20th century. John Sadler and Guy Green newspaper proprietors based in Liverpool are often credited as the first commercially successful black printers the term used by over glazed printers involved in the pottery industry. Sadler and Green were neither engravers nor potters but entrepreneurs who understood the printing process. Copper plates were commissioned from engravers in Liverpool or London and blank or plain tin glazed earthenware or Delftware tiles were ordered from the local Liverpool potteries. This example of the popular satire the Tithe Pig was signed in the copper plate at the bottom center just under the basket of fruit J. Sadler Liverpool. The Tithe Pig mocked the clergy on the ancient system of tithing, a tenth of a farmer's agricultural produce and a form of taxation that supported the work of the church. Here parents offer one of their 10 children as a humorous representation of the unfairness of paying in kind. Sadler and Green claimed their novel invention allowed them to print a design on 1200 earthenware tiles within six hours and that they had been developing the process as early as 1749 but only applied for a patent in 1756. The patent was not successful presumably because the technique was by then widespread. From the 1760s creamware became the ceramic of choice for overglazed printed decoration owing to the smooth surface and low cost. Between 1761 and 1780 Josiah Woodward had an exclusive arrangement with Sadler and Green. He sent his undecorated creamware from Staffordshire to Liverpool where Sadler and Green printed on it. The finished goods were then sent back to Wedgwood to sell to his customers or were sold in Liverpool. Wedgwood's flirtation with satirical designs was brief and only two or three examples are known including a version of the Tithe Pig. In 1763 Sadler requested from Wedgwood an out-of-date print known as the Triple Plea seen here a subject attacking the arrogance and greed of lawyers, parsons and physicians. Both Wedgwood and Worcester favored portraits of popular political figures such as this beloved military hero of the Seven Years' War, John Manners, Marcus of Granby. Reading from the upper left you see the original 1759 painting of Manners by Joshua Reynolds followed by a large expensive mezzotint of 1761 by Richard Houston. This was reduced in scale and design and engraved by Germain François Aliment for illustration in Tobias Smollett's continuation of the complete history of England published in 1761 seen in the centre which was copied by both factories. The copper plate made for the Worcester porcelain mug was signed in the plate by their in-house engraver Robert Hancock. The engraving on the creamware jug is signed with the name of Thomas Billingy who worked in Liverpool as a map engraver and printer. Another engraver involved in the print industry was Thomas Rothwell, a freelance Liverpool engraver who worked with Wedgwood until 1767. This is a rare Wedgwood plate signed by him and printed in iron red enamel rather than black. The print source was a French translation of Homer's Iliad by Madame d'Asier published in Paris in 1710 to 11. Yet another engraver was Thomas Radford who signed his name on this creamware teapot made at the Derby Potworks in Cockpit Hill around 1768 to 1770. This remarkable pairing of Queen Charlotte holding the Prince of Wales and the scoundrel and radical John Wilkes on this teapot illustrates the need for potters to make a profit by catering to all political tastes. By 1778 Radford had moved for work to Staffordshire and the following year he produced a series of patterns for teapots with satirical images for William Greatbatch, a well-known potter. This example depicts an astronomer or shiromancer satirizing his gullible female patrons. This mug is transfer printed with anti-Catholic satire. We don't know where the mug was made, it's unmarked. Religious discrimination against the Catholic Church, its clergy and its adherents, had been officially sanctioned in Anglican Britain since the Reformation. Parliament passed a series of Catholic relief acts which eroded the harsh laws excluding Catholics from public life. The act of 1778 did not allow freedom to worship but enabled Catholics to purchase land and join the army. The act raised a storm of anti-Catholic protest. Months later an attempt to extend the new provisions to Scotland in early 1779 led to bigoted insurgencies in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as the publication of this print and subsequently this mug. Here a kilt wearing saunee, a Scottish soldier in the British army, faces down Catholic sympathizers. While across the river Tweed, John Bull, personifying England, is seen lying on the ground trampled on the whore of Babylon who is riding a seven-headed beast representing Catholicism. The print popularized the imagined oppression Englishmen would suffer under liberated Catholic Church. Whoever drank from this mug or toasted with it not only acknowledged its overt anti-Catholic sentiment but also contributed to spreading the same prejudices and bigotry. In June 1780 following the anti-papest riots in Scotland, 50,000 rioters terrorized London for six days destroying chapels and houses belonging to Roman Catholics. The riot was known as the Gordon riots. Lord George Gordon, the fanatical and controversial president of the newly formed Protestant Association, who had instigated the riots in Scotland, led the revolt in London. Gordon, nicknamed Lord George Riot, was charged with high treason. Several years later this illustration appeared in the salacious Rambler's magazine. It represents Lord Gordon's unexpected conversion to Judaism and the moment of his ritual circumcision at the hands of a woman. The text in the Rambler identifies the woman as the daughter of the rabbi standing behind her. Lord Gordon took the name Yisrael bar Abraham Gordon and later lived as a Jew in Birmingham. However the print was produced two years before his official conversion said to be in 1787. The scene therefore satirizes his interest in Judaism rather than his actual conversion. The jug is shamelessly signed at the bottom of the image by John Ainsley, the staffager printer, clearly in sympathy with the overt anti-Semitic scene. The French Revolution and the execution of the French Sovereigns in 1793 shocked the British public, fearful that such anarchy might be imported into England. The guillotine considered a humane device for executions minimizing pain was designed in 1789 by a surgeon but was named after its promoter Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotine. Dozens of depictions appeared on broadsides and in serials. The source of the grisly image on this mug was the new wonderful magazine and marvelous chronicle of extraordinary productions, events and occurrences in nature and art published in London in 1793. One of the defining moments in British history was the Manchester Men's Massacre also known as Peter Liu. It occurred in 1819 when the Manchester Yeomanry backed by 200 members of the 15th Hussars and Cheshire Yeomanry charged into a peaceful rally of 80,000 people gathered to demand parliamentary reform and fair representation. 15 people were killed and hundreds wounded. This graphic etching by George Cruikshank published a month after the attack captured the brutality. The name Peter Liu was an ironic comparison with the Battle of Waterloo waged just four years earlier. The militia specifically sought out women to send a powerful message that they had no voice and should not have been represented at the rally. Interestingly, two working-class women's group, the Royton Female Union Society and the Manchester Female Union Society were specifically named among the banners on the printed handkerchief. These women challenged the traditional relationship between gender and politics long before feminism made its mark in the late 19th century. This jug, like the printed cotton scarf, appeared within days of the event and similar objects were quickly circulated throughout Britain sold to raise money for the injured. The rally took place on St. Peter's Field in the centre of Manchester, seen here in a map printed on this jug. The source was JB Smith's an impartial narrative of the late melancholy occurrences in Manchester published in Liverpool in 1819. The reverse is printed with major goals of the reform movement. At the time the Manchester textile industry was suffering an economic depression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The corn laws added a tariff on grain imports increasing the cost of British food. Such political wares had a market throughout Britain and were purchased by those clearly in sympathy with the plight of these workers. It was over a decade before real change occurred. This large mug, possibly to serve the drink porter, is printed in purple enamel with hand-painted colourful details. The material is bone china yet another British invention perfected in 1796 which combined bone ash and china stone with kaolin. The mug depicts key events leading up to the Controversial Reform Bill of 1832 which changed the corrupt electoral system. Before 1832 only one man in ten had the right to vote. Its passing allowed the middle classes to share power with the upper classes. This side depicts King William IV with a large broom inscribed public opinion, sweeping out his ministers, especially his prime minister, the inept British war hero the Duke of Westminster who opposed electoral reform. This mug celebrates the reform act and the dramatic changes brought in by its passing. To conclude, the humble 18th century objects that we have just surveyed remind us of the hard fought histories of hate, fear, prejudice and social injustice that colour our past. Today more than ever it is critical that we don't forget these histories. I hope this short talk has piqued your interest in creamware and transfer printing and you will consult the reading list to learn more about it. Thank you very much for listening.