Below are some examples and price guides of T & R Boote’s antique ceramics including a tile panel and examples of their maker’s marks.

T & R Boote incised maker’s mark alongside the diamond registration mark.

T & R Boote maker’s transfer mark with Royal Patent.

GREENAWAY – T & R BOOTE AND MINTON TILES
Twenty-six tiles in various sets, earthenware, dust-pressed body with transfer-printed illustrations depicting children at play and the four seasons, after designs by Kate Greenaway, bordered with Aesthetic Movement Japonesque motifs, reverse of 18 tiles with printed diamond registration marks, 4 polychrome tiles with moulded marks for ‘Minton’s China Works Stoke on Trent’, 155 x 155mm., 1881 and 1883 (26)

Sold for £382.50 inc. premium at Bonham’s in 2022

Antique Ironstone White Pitcher

Ironstone T and R Boote. Measures 12 1/4 x 8 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

Sold for US$45 at Matthew Bullock Auctioneers in 2023

Mid-19th c. English Ironstone Lidded Tureen by T&R Boote, Sydenham Shape, with underplate, all pieces with registry stamp indicating manufacture in 1853 and 1854, tureen: 14 3/4″ high, 12 1/2″ wide, underplate: 16 1/4″ x 13 3/4″; PLUS Ironstone ladle, not original to this tureen, 13″ long.

Sold for US$300 at Vintage Accents Auctions in 2022

T. & R. BOOTE LTD., BURSLEM TILE PANEL, CIRCA 1880 glazed and painted earthenware, later framed (15cm x 87cm)

Sold for £280 at Lyon & Turnbull in 2022

A pedestal dish / tazza of squared form decorated by Florence Upton for T & R Boote, titled ‘The Golli… Bicycle Club’. Approx. 1 1/2″ high x 6″ x 6 3/4″

Sold for £32 at Claydon Auctioneers Ltd in 2021

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Thomas Pardoe (3 July 1770 – 1823) was a British enameler noted for flower painting. He was born in Derby on 3 July 1770 and was apprenticed at the Derby (Nottingham Road) porcelain factory in the 1780s, later moving to Worcester. He painted creamware at Swansea between 1795 and 1809, coming under the influence of potter and botanist Lewis Weston Dillwyn. The following addresses are listed in the Bristol directories: Under the Bank (1809–11), 28 Bath Street (1812–16) and Thomas Street (1820–22).

In Bristol he was an independent decorator and gilder, painting china and pottery supplied in the white by John Rose of Coalport and possibly others. His Bristol pieces are the only ones he signed e.g., “Pardoe Bristol”. I assume that only the signatures that include the word “fecit” are ones he decorated, other inscriptions simply indicating retailing. According to Pountney the enamel was fired at the Temple Pottery. He also worked on glass, as the directory listing for 1813 describe him as a “China and glass enameler and gilder, wholesale and retail”. He also retailed pieces decorated at John Rose’s factory, and probably from the rival Coalport factory operated by John’s brother Thomas. Pardoe is particularly associated with botanical scenes.

He went to Nantgarw in 1821 and died in 1823. He is buried in Eglwysilan Churchyard, S.E. of Pontypridd in South Wales. His sketch book is now in the V&A Museum. In 1833 William Henry Pardoe, son of Thomas Pardoe, took over Nantgarw Pottery and began manufacturing stoneware bottles and brown glazed earthenware known as Rockingham pottery. He also began manufacturing clay tobacco pipes, many of which were exported to Ireland. The business continued under Pardoe’s descendants, and at its peak produced around 10,000 pipes a week, until its closure in 1920, when cigarettes replaced such clay pipes. Wikipedia

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The history of the ownership and management of the factory is complicated. The first formula, used in 1813-14, gave excellent results, but had an unacceptably high wastage rate, being very prone to deform (“slump”) during firing. This formula was also being used at Swansea, and pieces can be impossible to allocate between the two with confidence. After a period of experimentation, in 1817-1820 the original paste formula was used again.

After ceasing to make or decorate porcelain in the 1820s, and a period of closure, the pottery reopened in 1833, making earthenware and stoneware, as well as clay pipes, before finally closing in 1920, when cigarettes had replaced pipes. The site is now a museum, and also a working pottery. In 2017 a limited quantity of porcelain was made there, using the original formula, as reconstructed. Reference: Wikipedia

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The Royal Doulton company began as a partnership between John Doulton, Martha Jones, and John Watts, with a factory at Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth, London trading as Jones, Watts & Doulton in 1815. After Martha Jones left the partnership in 1820, the trade name was changed to Doulton & Watts. The business specialised in making stoneware articles, including decorative bottles and salt glaze sewer pipes. The company took the name Doulton & Co. in 1853 after the retirement of John Watts.

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The Wedgwood family were of long standing potters in the Burslem community long before the birth of Josiah Wedgwood.

Josiah Wedgwood was born in 1730 in Burslem and was the youngest of thirteen children.

Josiah’s father, Thomas Wedgwood died when Josiah was only nine years old. Josiah’s eldest brother, Thomas, succeeded his father as a potter and Josiah became apprentice to him in 1744.

During his apprenticeship, Josiah contracted smallpox which lead to problems with his system and his legs. When he was thirty-four, a bruise lead to the amputation of one of his legs.

After his apprenticeship with his brother ended, Josiah began making knife handles, imitation agate and tortoiseshell small wares at Stoke. It was here that he went into partnership with John Harrison, but the partnership was dissolved two years later.

In 1754, Josiah Wedgwood went into partnership with Thomas Whieldon of Fenton Low who was one of the most eminent potters of his day. They remained together for five years, their principal manufactures being tortoiseshell plates and dishes, cauliflower jugs, teapots with crab-stock handles, agate knife handles and other small wares. During this time, Wedgwood also produced fine green glaze which covered his dessert services in imitations of leaves.

The partnership ended in 1759 and Josiah Wedgwood returned to Burslem where he started business on his own at the “Churchyard” works. It was here that he improved the manufacture of pottery and soon became so successful that he was compelled to enlarge his establishment and took over the “Ivy House” works.

Wedgwood employed the services of his cousin, Thomas Wedgwood and in 1765 they became partners. The first ware which gained him reputation was his fine cream-coloured ware, which remained popular from 1762 until his death. This cream-ware became known as Queen’s ware after it had been approved of by Queen Victoria.

In 1768, Josiah Wedgwood went into partnership with Thomas Bentley. Around the same time, Wedgwood began producing red ware which was formed of the same ochreous clay that had been used by Elers almost a century earlier. Later in 1766 Wedgwood began to make black ware which he called basaltes or black Egyptian.

In 1773 Wedgwood made a fine white terra-cotta suitable for cameos, portraits and bas-reliefs. This was the forerunner of Wedgwood jasper ware of which Wedgwood is still reknown.

Below is a list of some reknown artists who worked for Wedgwood.

References: Chaffers, “The Keramic Gallery” edited by H M Cundall 1907

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He was a nineteenth century designer who saw himself more as a tradesman with an understanding of industrial production embracing new technologies for a mass market. In 1847 at the age of only thirteen he was sent to the Government School of Design in London which had been set up ten years earlier in Somerset house to meet the challenges of Continental competition. He studied at the school for the next seven years and won awards for his designs but his main interest was botany and after his graduation he was appointed lecturer in botany at the Metropolitan School in Gower Street. The next year he became botany lecturer at the School of Design where he stayed until 1869. He exhibited ceramic designs for Minton and Wedgwood and cast iron for Coalbrookdale at the 1868 Paris Exposition.He also designed interiors, carpets, wallpaper and metalwork. He wrote extensively on design and spent time in Japan and the U.S. where he lectured on design as well as studying manufacturing processes. He died in 1904 while on a business trip to France. Reference: British Museum

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William Moorcroft studied art at Burslem then in London and Paris. He experimented with his own pottery designs around 1896 while working for James Macintyre  and produced Aurelian Ware which was partly decorated with transfers and partly painted by hand. Moorcroft developed highly lustred glazes and used oriental shapes and decorations. Some of his techniques were closely guarded trade secrets. He then developed his famous Florian Ware, with heavy slip and a translucent glaze which produces brilliance of colour.

In 1913, William Moorcroft set up his own factory at Cobridge with staff from Macintyres, and backed by a financial arrangement with Liberty & Co of London, The business succeeded. Much of the output was sold through Liberty & Co and Tiffany in New York City. In 1928 Queen Mary made him “Potter to the Queen” through a Royal Warrant, which was stamped on the pottery. His son, Walter joined the company when he was twenty, and took over the management of the pottery in 1945 just before William’s death.

Reference: Wikipedia

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Susannah Margaretta “Daisy” Makeig-Jones (1881–1945) was a pottery designer for Wedgwood. She is best known for her “Fairyland Lustre” series.

Makeig-Jones was born in Wath-upon-Dearne near Rotherham, Yorkshire, the eldest of seven children. Her father, K. Geoffrey Makeig-Jones, was of Welsh descent and was a medical doctor, and her mother was the daughter of Thomas Reeder, a solicitor. Makeig-Jones was taught by a governess at home, then attended a boarding school near Rugby. After her family moved to Torquay, she entered the Torquay School of Art. After an introduction from a relative to the managing director of Cecil Wedgwood, Makeig-Jones joined the firm as an apprentice painter in 1909.

Daisy Makeig-Jones’s fascination with fairies, following such illustrators as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and the Danish artist, Kay Nielsen, proved very popular in the 1920s. Wedgwood have always produced a huge range of styles to capture different market tastes. The cosy drawing room and nursery atmosphere of the decoration of these works, and the monumental forms, contrast sharply with the modernist works being produced at Wedgwood’s in the same period.

Targeting the luxury end of the market with these pieces, they represent one of Wedgwood’s most extraordinary technical achievements in the ceramic industry. The richly coloured ornament of Fairyland Lustre was extremely popular throughout the 1920s as expensive collector’s pieces. But by the 1930s the appeal of lustre was waning and the collapse of the American market had a noticable effect on the demand for ornamental wares. Fairyland was gradually phased out in the 1930s as Keith Murray and Norman Wilson were taken up. Fairyland was considered too expensive and old-fashioned.
[Susan McCormack, ‘British Design at Home’, p.113] Reference Victoria and Albert Museum

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