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Hartley Green - Leeds Pottery

Leeds Pottery was founded in 1770 by John & Joshua Green, who built an extensive pottery works at Jack Lane in Hunslet, a village on the outskirts of the growing town of Leeds. William Hartley in 1781 added his business expertise to the production skills of the Greens and under the new name of Hartley Green and Co the company flourished trading across Europe and as far a field as Russia and the Americas. Household goods were manufactured in a wide variety of ceramic bodies, the most popular being Creamware, a new type of earthenware made from white Cornish clay combined with a translucent glaze to produce the characteristic pale cream colour. Although Creamware was made by many companies in Staffordshire and Yorkshire, the commercial success and the outstanding quality of the Leeds product meant that all Creamware became popularly known as Leedsware. As the prosperity of Britain increased due to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions the company flourished throughout the late 18th and early 19th Centuries producing a range of elegant items for the growing Middle Class who could not afford the imported china tableware used in aristocratic homes. After the deaths of the founders the different tastes of the Victorians meant a gradual decline in the business and the pottery eventually closed in 1878. Despite the eventual demolition of the factory the moulds and pattern books as well as some fine examples of Leedsware survived in local museums and this enabled the new Hartley Green company to start production in 1983 of Creamware to the original designs. Modern technology has now been introduced at the beginning and end of the process to ensure consistency in the clay mix and perfect kiln control, but in other respects the pottery is made as it would have been made 200 years ago with each piece taking up to a week to pass through the various stages of production. Paul Smith China carries a wide range of this traditional product which can be viewed at the shop in Skipton.