Empire Porcelain Co
of Empire Works, Stoke Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire
c.1896 The Empire Porcelain Co was established in about 1896, at the Empire Works in Stoke Road, on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent. A wide range of pottery and porcelain was subsequently produced.
Known best for its bright, simply decorated post-war tablewares, this company was valued for its adventurous, decorative pieces from the 1930s. Often startling shapes, very responsive to the strongest of continental deco design, they are also decorated with accomplished 'Art' glazes, some reminiscent of the contemporary Ruskin crystalline glazes.
Post WWII owned by Lazarus and Rosenfeld Ltd, a European ceramics group and founders of the Victoria Porcelain Factory at Altrouhlau, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic).
1947 Advert in British Industries Fair Catalogue as Exhibiting Member of the British Pottery Manufacturers' Federation of Federation House, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Composite Exhibit. Proprietors: Lazarus and Rosenfeld. (Pottery and Glassware Section - Olympia, Ground Floor, Stand No. A.1198) [1]
1951 Acquired by H. Kaufmann Ltd, a Suffolk-based manufacturer of lawnmowers,
1958 Became part of the Qualcast Group as a result of its takeover of the Kaufmann Group.
1963 Empire Porcelain Co. Ltd was incorporated (1963) as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Qualcast Group.
1967 The pottery closed, along with many other small potteries in that and the next decade, because of the difficultly of modernising the Empire Works.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 1947 British Industries Fair Adverts 398 and 399; and p958