Booths

Booths, of Church Bank Pottery, Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

• 1842 The Church Bank Works were built by Robert Beswick, who used them until 1860.

• 1860 The works were then taken over by Beech and Hancock

• 1862 Eardley and Hammersley took over the works

• 1864 Evans and Booth commenced business at the Knowles Works, Burslem

• 1868 Ralph Hammersley alone operated the Church Bank Works

• 1868 Evans and Booth became Thomas Booth and Co.

• 1870 Thomas Booth and Co were at Church Bank Works

• 1872 Thomas Booth and Co became Thomas Booth and Son.

• In about 1876, Thomas G. Booth succeeded.

• 1883 Messrs. T. G. and F. Booth took over and continued to 1891

• 1891 The style became Booths

• 1898 The company took limited status.

• 1914 Potters. Speciality: silicon china. Employees 800.

• This firm continued to the 1940s.

• Various marks have been used incorporating the initials of the various firms – T. B. and Co, TGB, etc. All these firms produced good quality earthenware objects.

• Booths became famous for their Royal Semi-Porcelain and for their Silicon China. An important twentieth-century development that should be noted here was in the large scale reproduction of eighteenth-century Worcester (and other 'collectable') porcelain. Such pieces may bear the crescent-shaped mark (really the initials of C. Bowers) or copies of the old marks. Other specimens are unmarked and are often offered for sale as originals. It should be noted that the Booth copies are in opaque earthenware, not porcelain as were the originals.

• 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. (Pottery and Glassware Section - Olympia, Ground Flor, Stand No. A.1242)

• 1948 Merger with Colclough China Ltd of Longton to form Booths and Colcloughs

• At some point Whitehall Securities Corporation took over Booths and Colcloughs

• 1951 Whitehall Securities Corporation purchased the Lawley family shares and made offer for the remainder of the shares in Lawley Group.

• 1953 S Pearson Industries, which owned 76% of the ordinary shares in Lawley Group, financed the acquisition of the outstanding shares in Booths and Colcloughs.

See Also

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Sources of Information

• [1] The Potteries Website