Staffordshire Potteries

Feb 5

Biltons Staffordshire

Quite often I come across some very smart decorative patterns on Staffordshire pottery marked “Biltons”, with designs from the 1950s to 1970s.

There doesn’t seem to be much written about this maker, except for the timeline below which comes from ThePotteries.Org . They produced mainly inexpensive dinnerware for the domestic mass-market…and their peak seemed to be in the 1960s when they introduced mass production decoration techniques such as rubber stamped pattern making, and multi colour machine printing.

As happened frequently with many of the Staffordshire potteries, Biltons changed ownership often before being unable to continue into the 21st Century due to both changing markets and financial pressures.

Colin Melbourne

Colin Melbourne (1928-2009) ranks highly along with the best of British Ceramic Designers of the 20th Century. It seems surprising that his work is not more widely known and appreciated outside the U.K, but many of his designs seemed to be ahead of their time.

The vase below I came across late last year is from Melbourne’s “Petra” – a series of several different camouflage style patterns for Royal Norfolk, Staffordshire, c late 1950s.

Colin Melbourne “Petra” Series Vase

Colin also produced a now very collectable series of animals for Beswick, another for Midwinter and one for Bossons. Colin also worked with David Queensberry on a series called “Drumlanrig Melbourne” with striking abstract patterns. You can see examples of most of these series on the UK website RetroSelect .

I think though, one of Melbourne’s most striking series was “Memphis”, for Crown Devon c1960. Read more

May 1

Kiln Craft Bacchus

Kiln Craft was produced by Staffordshire Potteries Ltd., which grew out of the Keele Street Pottery Group. In the 1950s they were producers of utilitarian white cups, and dinner wares.

During the 1960s and 1970s the company concentrated on the production of mugs as well.