This page is a dedication of stories, anecdotes, shards and fragments of history relating to the Burmantofts pottery and Leeds Fireclay Co. Family members of the pottery workers dedicate some of the stories and the remains are the results of years of hard work by researchers such as myself.

If you wish to add something to this page then please email me with the information you have. I am looking to add any suitable detail regarding the pottery. Did you remember the pottery? Did you have a relative who worked there? Did you work there yourself? All contributions will be welcome and dealt with confidentially if requested.

If you have not grasped the concept yet of the Internet or logging into email accounts, or know of someone who has information but does not use a computer then perhaps someone could email me on their behalf.

Some of the information here is touched on in my e-book; the rest is unique to this page. Please do not contact me asking for information about contributors, as I will not respond.

One thing I find amusing and yet disturbing is that most Leeds folk have never heard of Burmantofts pottery. Some who have heard of it saw it at the Abbey house museum only. When I talk to people about my hobby and mention Burmantofts pottery in Leeds, the usual reply is, ‘Do you mean Leeds cream ware?’ The fact that I could bash Leeds cream ware with a hammer does not go down well in the conversation and only adds to my frustration.

Not all is lost. If you explain further then most locals will acknowledge Wilcox brickworks (the same Burmantofts pottery) and they remember in some way or another the imposing chimneys and extreme smog.

The locals who were born in the area of Burmantofts will remember joyfully playing in the large quarry throwing rocks down into the pools of water below and being chased off the site by workmen.

To begin with, when Rock colliery was first registered as a business in 1842 then the landscape was totally different. Nothing but fields and scrub for miles and as the colliery expanded through underground drift mines and outcropping of coal then the site began to spread into acres of quarries and mud flats. The pit buildings also began to grow with pithead winding gears, networks of conveyors for the coal, washing plants to clean the coal and finally clay processing sheds where the grinding and processing of the local clay would then be passed on to the brick production sheds. With the combination of their own coal and clay then the production of bricks and sanitary wares was the obvious choice. This also laid way to the building of many long tunnel kilns to be built for the firing of the bricks and the site had eventually taken over 16 acres of the local land.

In the former decades of the brickworks the workers had a very simplistic way of life and worked hard under very rough conditions. Surprisingly though, Christian values were impressed on the workers by the managers of the factories and production would stop for religious events in which there was an expectation that workers and family members would attend services such as harvest festival while being overlooked by their employers. Attendance was compulsory. Records of that time would make reference to special days where permission was given to the workers to go and help local farmers bring in the crops and would become a social event and was probably a welcome relief to the pit face workers who spent most of their day down the mine chopping away at the coal seams.

As part of the contributions to the community and their workers the factory managers would arrange picnics and social events funded by the factory. Indeed they took their role very serious in the community and donated a lot to the local churches including the faience reredos that is in St Agnes church where a commemorative plaque dedicated to James Holroyd is still present albeit painted in hundreds of coats of gloss paint covering the original ceramic faience.

Information taken from the factory’s staff newsletter Ellefsee detailed all of the above information and comes from the accounts of long serving staff of the time. Other stories included how special pieces were taken from the store and given to staff as presents for such occasions as weddings, anniversaries and retirement. These pieces were kept, probably out of sentiment but later some would meet an unfortunate demise as one pottery worker recalled how the staff would take some of these items outside and use them as target practice, knocking large chunks out of the pieces. This gratitude was also metered out to unwanted pottery moulds that were not longer in use and made excellent targets, as the soft plaster would take many shots before eventually being pummelled within an inch of its existence.

Thankfully not all of the unsold pottery in store met this demise and eventually met different fortunes that will be outlined later on.

Not all of the events recorded were a picnic as some incidents showed how hard working life could be. One of these unfortunate events involved Marian Ogden who complained of feeling ill and remained off work. The factory’s doctor diagnosed a bilious attack but secretly recognised the symptoms of lead poisoning. Without treatment this is serious and causes many incurable diseases, and in Marian’s case, led to blindness. This went to court and was made national by the journals of the period. James Holroyd, manager of that time was eventually reprieved following many testimonials to his good treatment and conditions his workers and the Ogdens were persuaded to drop the case with a little £100 sweetener thrown in by James.

During the evolution of Leeds inner city then the landscape became ever changing as industry took off and land became a premium. Unused quarries were land filled and levelled off around the pottery and sold off to developers. Apart from the mining of some remaining coal and the precious clay used by the pottery the epicentre of the factory was based around the pottery and kilns and the unwanted surrounding land became surplus to requirements. Rows of back-to-back houses were built to meet the demand for inner city accommodation and was conveniently placed for the workers at the pottery and other local industry workers. The surrounding area included such buildings as St James’s hospital and other growing factories. The farmers fields had long disappeared and through industrial decline the landscape became a grimy slum that would last until the 1950’s.

When the pottery was eventually closed due to the dissolving of the Leeds Fireclay Co the factory remained derelict for a decade before it was raised to the ground. For those old enough to remember the regeneration of this area this is a layout of the landscape. Quarry hill flats were built on the site of the largest quarry belonging to the pottery. The other quarry was located at the site where Torre Road bus depot was built. The third quarry was further out towards the edge of the estate and was a lot smaller and is now part of an industrial estate. The pottery beehive kiln and offices were located on the site where Ebor gardens estate was eventually built and the main factory and brick kilns were located on the site where Shakespeare school and Burtons industrial estate is located. Of course, things are on the move again and Shakespeare school is no longer there, as the site of the new academy has taken over. Locals today still inform me that if you did around in the garden then bits of pottery can be unearthed. This is especially true of a friend of mine who dug up four unglazed tiles of about four inches square, all four in perfect condition.

Peter's memories of the pottery

Robert Bond

It is now my opinion having read information about Robert Bond, and having spoken to his step-granddaughter that he was instrumental in the success and stability of the pottery during his time as manager. It can be said that things took a turn following his retirement and production eventually dropped off. Robert began work at the pottery as a young man and became an apprentice glazer some time later. His step-granddaughter recalled how he loved to paint in oils and was a lover of art. The family photo album shows pictures of Robert in old age dressed in painters garb with an elegant beret stood in front of his canvas. His ability for art must have convinced someone to give him a chance in the beginning. He painted subjects in coloured slips, as he would have done with his oil painting. The decorated vases usually involved exotic birds with the occasional landscape but the impasto wares lost favour towards the later part of the 19^th century and probably led Robert down the managerial role as his style of decoration was not required any more.

Robert took over a managerial role in 1896 after John Holroyd Jnr stood down with less than a year in post. This is where Robert forged ahead and made some impressive moves. Inspired with many ideas as to maximising architectural commissions Robert worked in conjunction with Maurice Barrett, the factory’s chemist to make durable weatherproof glazes and materials. The result was a non-porous brick glaze called Marmo that had white qualities of Portland stone but never became stained or dirty like the other building materials in use. This was a really important breakthrough for Burmantofts and took off better than they could have ever expected. Lefco was a similar material made for the garden and many ornaments and statuary were made. Yet again, due to the weather resistance these were very popular. Around this time Robert lived in one of the cottages on Potternewton Lane, locally known as the ‘artists village’ many ceramicists and painters lived in this area. He was now settled in with his second wife and her children. Frank, one of her sons, eventually worked along side Robert as foreman and eventually moved up to one of the management team after Robert retired.

One story told by the step-granddaughter was how Robert and his first wife would argue heatedly and one casualty of this argument was an innocent Burmantofts dragon vase that was launched at Robert by said wife, barely missing him and hitting the wall behind, (I actually was shown the re-glued offending weapon that is still in sorry existence to stand as witness).

Harry Baxendale

The nephews of Harry offered this contribution.

Harry was a head colourist at the factory and was very active towards the end of the production of pottery and through to the twenties where he still overlooked the colour mixing of the glaze for the faience tiles. Part of his contribution to this story is the experimental glazes he was involved with including a very difficult process of decoration with platinum lustre. At that time the wares produced were art nouveau in design with oxidised metallic lustres. The designs were mostly produced by the artist Joseph Walmsley who produced many of the designs for Burmantofts. His private collection of items from the pottery includes some very unusual lustre wares as well as some odd LEFCO items. Unfortunately, other potteries were more successful with their lustre wares and Burmantofts eventually decided that decorative ceramics were no longer viable. Having said this, occasional pieces were turned out as test items or as a whimsy to pass the time.

RF

This account was given to me by a contributor we shall call RF. These are his exact words as he describes his father’s time at Leeds Fireclay Co.

My father was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Leeds  (Farnley) Fireclay Company that took over the Burmantofts works in the 1930's. He had a charger that was the only circular piece found at that time in an onsite collection of Burmantofts samples of tiles etc which was broken up and distributed to staff members and to the Leeds City museum - part of which I recall being told was then stored or displayed in the Kirkstall/Adle area of the museum - perhaps for safety reasons during the war years?

Also of interest is the fact that items from the Burmantofts main store were
sold and not gifted to the Leeds Museum. I remember my father telling me
that some time after Burmantofts was taken over by LFC he along with the
Manager Jeffrey Johnson and a Director Mr Miller opened up a store which had not been opened for many years and it was there that the items (samples of wares) were found. Each said they would take a piece or two for their homes; my father said he selected the only circular piece and two tiles and another gifted to a friend of fathers - a farmer called Mr Graford. I remember that tile well because it was a painting called 'Rat Catcher' and featured a man holding up a rat by its tail. He also had an ashtray. These, I believe, were often put into kilns as test pieces for new glaze colours for possible use as sanitary ware.

Of interest is a photo of a map of LFC with boundaries delineated and in the top right hand corner marked with the German word for Secret. It was found in post-war German war archives by Mr Johnston when, as a British intelligence officer, he was searching German wartime records after the 2nd World War.
As you will know LFC made LEFCO ware for garden furniture - bird baths,
eagles etc. I have none of these but my sister still has a birdbath and my brother has a couple of large eagles.

As a boy I used to go with Dad on a Saturday morning during the war and went on one of the 2 saddle-tank locomotives they had for internal use on the
site for building up trucks with LFC ware for picking up by main-line LNER trains for further transport. At that time LFC had its own draughtsmen for designing some new equipment (eg brick presses); they had their own pattern makers and on Mondays melted their pig iron into moulds; the cast pieces were then fettled up and if necessary turned them up on one of a range of lathes in the workshop. At one time the Company made its own gas for the kilns but new chemical processes made this uneconomical. The Company made its own electricity using a Bellis and Morcambe triple expansion steam driven generator. This I remember well - it was painted green and all the copper pipes were polished daily and it had a characteristic smell and purred
smoothly when running!! After the war the Company used Kerabadaf tunnel
kilns for firing its sanitary ware. During the war much grain retrieved from ships sunk in Liverpool by the Germans was brought to LFC for drying
out on its steam-heated floors. The smell was horrid and the dried material
was used as cattle fodder.

I remember once going with Dad to pick up some glaze compound from a pottery in Halifax that was closing. We drove for miles to get this glaze, as it was a very expensive commodity. We picked up several sacks of this and it was worth a lot of money. When they began to use it some time later the colourist called the foreman to look at the results. All of the sanitary wares glazed with the new glaze had fired with brown speckles all over them. It was decided that the glaze should not be used and a different batch should be opened. Unfortunately, the foreman was called again the following week to see that this new batch had done the same. After many investigations, it was found that the glaze was not at fault and in fact, the factory roof that had rusted badly had begun to shower rust particles over everything in the factory and was causing the spots.

Ah! Happy days and memories!!

‘Who is this crank’ I hear you say. I get that a lot these days!

Such is the life of a collector and enthusiast. I became interested in Burmantofts Faience when I was seven years old. I already had an eye for antiques and fine art, even at that age, mostly due to the people around me. My Grandparents had taken me along with my sister and cousins to the Abbey House museum to see the newly acquired Burmantofts collection. I have been fixated ever since!

Most of my collection consists of pieces of pottery but extends to articles, documents and curios relating to the pottery. Most of this was purchased as part of my research into the pottery.  Researching takes up a lot of my time and satisfies my need to learn more about the history of the pottery, fuelled by the lack of accurate resources and information about the pottery’s history. I’m sure you can appreciate this relating to the poor results shown by entering key word searches into any Internet search engine.

I chose to put my findings into a structured document and through lots of wrangling with publishers and vanity press; I decided to create my very own e-book for sale to the public. People often ask me why I don’t have it published as most people can’t use a computer and have no interest in using one either. As a vanity press publisher once told me- ‘Even the dinosaurs died out, why not make an e-book. If people want desperately to read the research then they will get around it somehow’.

To be quite frank, I was quoted the cheapest price of £2500 for 1000 copies for my book to be put into press but this did not include any photos whatsoever. My e-book has about 250 photos and being set into print would have retailed as a shelf-ready book at about £50.

Most academics and professional research is not shared with mere mortals such as you or I and remains in the darkened libraries of academia, never to be shared with the public domain. I find this very sad as most people can’t afford the cost of private research and believe me when I say this, most institutes charge a fortune for you to have access in one way or another to private OR public collections. I should know as I have funded all my research myself.

This is why I have added this page so that we can all share valuable memories and stories without the scoffing academics labelling us as cranks. I hope you enjoy these pages and will only prosper by your contributions.

To quote one of my main contributors to this page-

“Power to your elbow”