Spode: A Great Legacy of British Pottery
The Spode company was founded by Josiah Spode, who earned renown in the ceramic business for perfecting the blue underglaze printing process in 1784 and for co-developing the formula for fine bone china. He opened a factory in Stoke-on-Trent in 1767 and in 1776 developed the current Spode factory. His business in creamwear (a fine cream-coloured earthenware) and in pearlware (a fine white-glazed earthenware) was very successful. He began a career in the pottery industry at the age of 16, and later married a haberdasher, Ellen Findley, in 1754 and had eight children, Josiah II, Samuel, Mary, Ellen, Sarah, William, Anne and Elizabeth. His inherent skills and sheer dedication to his business lead to two major achievements that would redefine the pottery industry. The first was the development of a winning formula for fine bone china, and the second was the perfection of blue under-glaze printing. After successfully working for many of the best potters in the Stoke-on-Trent area, including Thomas Whieldon, which is still working today, Josiah I set up his own small pottery factory in 1760 and in 1770 established the Spode pottery company. He bought up land that adjoined the factory enabling him to make use of the intricate canal system that served the potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, allowing raw materials to be brought in and finished ware shipped out.
Spode was able to out-compete his rivals due to his two key innovations: the technique of blue underglaze
printing and the perfected formula for bone china. During the 18th century many English potters were striving and competing to discover the industrial secret of the production of fine translucent porcelain. The Plymouth and Bristol factories, and (from 1782-1810) the New Hall (Staffordshire) factory under Champion’s patent, were producing hard paste or true porcelain similar to Oriental china. In the artificial or soft paste porcelain, imitating French production like Sevres, silica or ground up flint was used in the clay to give it strength and translucency. The technique was developed by adding calcined bone to this glassy frit, as examplifed in the production of Bone China.
The bone porcelains, especially those of Spode, Minton, Davenport and Coalport, eventually established the standards for soft-paste porcelain which were maintained widely after 1800. Although many of the factories had, before Spode, established a proportion of about 40-45 per cent calcined bone in the formula as standard, it was Spode who first abandoned the practice of calcining or fritting the bone-ash with some of the other ingredients, and used the simple mixture of bone-ash, petuntse (china stone) and china clay, which since this time has formed the technical makeup of English porcelain. A standard English paste may be taken as 6 parts bone-ash, 4 parts petuntse and 3.5 parts kaolin, all finely ground together. This is essentially the same as true porcelain but with the addition of a larger proportion of bone-ash.
Josiah Spode I, as mentioned above, is credited with the introduction of underglaze blue transfer printing into Staffordshire, in 1781-84. Spode introduced the blue underglaze transfer to Staffordshire ‘in a bid for supremacy in utilitarian ware. Worcester and Bow had commenced transfer printing in 1756, and Wedgwood introduced a similar process to Staffordshire in blacks and reds using
This method involved the engraving of a design on a copper plate, which was then printed onto gummed tissue. The colour paste was worked into the cut areas of the copper plate and wiped from the uncut surfaces, and then printed by passing through rollers. These designs, including edge-patterns which had to be manipulated in sections,were then cut out using scissors and applied to the biscuit-fired ware using a white fabric, itself prepared with a gum solution. The tissue was then floated off in water, leaving the glaze pattern adhering to the plate. This was then dipped in the overglaze and returned to the kiln for the last firing. Blue underglaze transfer became a standard feature of Staffordshire pottery. Spode also used on-glaze transfers for other wares. The well-known Spode blue-and-white dinner services with engraved sporting scenes and Italian views were developed under Josiah Spode II, but continued to be reproduced. 
After some early trials Spode perfected a stoneware that came closer to porcelain than any previously, and introduced his “Stone-China” in 1813. It was light in body, grayish-white and gritty where it was not glazed and approached translucence in the early wares; later Stone-Ware became opaque. Spode pattern books, it is recorded that about 75000 Spode still survive from around 1800’s.
In Spode’s similar “Felspar porcelain”, introduced on the market in 1821, feldspar was an ingredient,
substituted for the Cornish stone in his standard bone china body, giving rise to what is in fact an extremely refined stoneware comparable to the rival “Mason’s ironstone”, produced by Josiah II’s nephew, Charles James Mason, and patented in 1813 as Spode’s “Felspar porcelain” and was continued into the Copeland & Garrett phase of the company (1833-1847). Some of the ware employed underglaze blue and iron red with touches of gilding in imitation of “Imari porcelain” that had been introduced on Spode’s bone china in the first decade of the century: the most familiar “Tobacco-leaf pattern” continued to be made by Spode’s successors, William Taylor Copeland, and then “W.T. Copeland & Sons, late Spode”.
In 1778 Josiah I sent his son, Josiah II, to London to open a showroom and shop. This shrewd decision meant that Spode had direct information from their valued and wealthy customer base in London. Spode was able to design and manufacture ware that customers actually wanted leading the company to great success.
In 1779, Josiah William Copeland became his partner and the combination was a good one. Spode was the potter and Copeland the salesman. After much experimentation, Josiah I and his son Josiah II also perfected the recipe for fine bone china – an invention that redefined the pottery industry. This fine bone china was brilliant white and translucent. It inspired new designs and finishes and required new skills. It was of superior quality and strong while also having the look of being delicate. It was this formula that made the Spode name famous across the globe. When Spode died, his son, Josiah Spode II, took over the business with Copeland, and began to make porcelain also. In the late 1700s, Chinese porcelain decorated in blue and white was increasingly difficult to obtain as the imports slowed due to an auction ring that was lowering the profits of the Chinese exporters. People began looking increasingly to domestic producers, creating a wonderful opportunity for Spode and his competitors. In response to this, The older Josiah used a transfer printing technique on copper plates to reproduce the Chinese blue and white pottery which contribued enormously to the success of the factory. In this period, Chinese porcelain, particularly blue and white willow pattern, had become popular and fashionable. However, by 1784 imports from China were reduced and it became harder for people to buy. Alongside the “Willow Pattern” perhaps the most famous design today is Spode’s “Blue Italian,” which was introduced in 1816. This represented the peak of the technology of engraving and underglaze printing, with a range of subtle tones which were previously impossible to achieve. The pattern seems to have been based on a 17th Century watercolour painting of an Italian landscape. It presents a laid-back, yet mysterious scene, enticing the user to ponder the purpose of the buildings and preoccupations of the people represented. At first they produced just the original Chinese designs but later added to these , their own patterns like Blue Italian, Tower Blue and Willow, still produced by Spode today. 
At his death in 1797, The Times obituary for Josiah Spode I said, “He possessed many amiable and endearing virtues, which rendered him an ornament to society and a service to mankind; in domestic attachments he was tender, generous and affectionate; in friendship faithful and sincere; nor was he less distinguished for charity and liberality to the poor. In short he lived universally respected and died not less generally lamented”.
After his father’s death, Josiah II (1757-1827) returned from London to run the Spode business in 
Stoke-on-Trent. Dedicated to the local community, Josiah II built cottage homes for his factory workers in Penkhull, a village next to Stoke where he also built his home which he named The Mount. He also donated money towards the rebuilding of a church in Stoke where he was senior churchwarden. During this time, ceramic slabs were laid at the cornerstones of the church which were inscribed “transmit to generations far remote invaluable memorials of the perfection to which the Potter’s Art in the neighbourhood had arrived in the early 19th century”.
Josiah II died in 1827 and was buried with his father at St Peter’s Church in Stoke.
The second son of Josiah II, Josiah III (1777-1829), had been initiated into the pottery business by his grandfather and founder of Spode, Josiah I. When Josiah III married Mary Williamson at the age of 38, he retired from the business but returned 12 years later to run the business after his father’s death in 1827. The business was carried on through his sons at Stoke until April 1833. In 1833, the company was sold to W. T. Copeland and Garrett. William Taylor Copeland, Lord Mayor of London 1835-1836, who was the son of William Copeland who had worked with Josiah II in London in the late 1700s. It remained in the Copeland family until 1966.
Today, The Portmeirion Group, who owns the Spode company, is committed to the development of the Spode brand producing the highest quality that is expected from Spode’s ware. The manufacture has been brought back many items to our factory in Stoke-on-Trent which has been producing high quality ware for the Portmeirion brand for 50 years. With Spode’s Blue Italian, Woodland, Christmas Tree and Baking Days collections as well as Portmeirion, Royal Worcester and Pimpernel, The Portmeirion Group is extremely happy to be associated with and producing ware for this great British brand.
Be sure to check out our Spode Pottery Store at terrific prices and no sales tax.
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His legacy would continue though, through artists such as Seurat and Van Gogh who were great admirers of his, and studied his works in great depth.
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