. Staffordshire pottery and its history . the lathe after throw-ing, and thus made thin and light. The claybody is homogeneous and smooth, showinggreater care in the preparation of the ornamentation is delicate and artistic,and has been made by sealing a soft piece ofthe clay on to the ware with a metal sealpressed over the soft clay. There is no glaze,but a high fire has produced a ware so hard as tobe almost forged solid. These things show thehand of the ex-silversmith in size and shape andfinish. The Burslem imitators—Garner and theWedgwoods—never made things like these. Elers,thou
. Staffordshire pottery and its history . the lathe after throw-ing, and thus made thin and light. The claybody is homogeneous and smooth, showinggreater care in the preparation of the ornamentation is delicate and artistic,and has been made by sealing a soft piece ofthe clay on to the ware with a metal sealpressed over the soft clay. There is no glaze,but a high fire has produced a ware so hard as tobe almost forged solid. These things show thehand of the ex-silversmith in size and shape andfinish. The Burslem imitators—Garner and theWedgwoods—never made things like these. Elers,though he may have stolen Dwights secrets, wentahead and showed the possibilities of potting. Heis said also to have produced black ware of asimilar character by mixing oxide of man-ganese—the magnus of Dr Plot—with theclay body, and, though no known pieces ofblack Elers ware can now be certainly identified, 36 Q^/N^p i. Red china teapot, probably by Elers. c. Sample of later date, with moulded spout. Stoke-on-Trent Samples of solid agate ware made by Wedgwood or Whieldon. c. 1760. From the Stoke-on-Trent Museums (see p. 74). To face p. 36 ELERS AND ART it is this black ware that his copyists chieflydeveloped.* For Nemesis overtook John Philip Elers, andin spite of all his secrecy, perhaps because of it,he was copied. Two potters, Twyford and Ast-bury,f one of whom at least had already made potsafter local methods in Shelton, set themselves in-dependently to acquire the arts of the lull the suspicions of Elers, Twyford shammedstupidity, and Astbury, who was younger, passedhimself off as an idiot. Recommended by thesestrange qualifications, they asked and obtainedemployment and, in time, the knowledge theydesired. They went back to Shelton with theiracquired arts, and, in a few years, the most in-telligent potters of North Staffordshire knew howto make civilized pottery. But by 1710 JohnPhilip Elers was tired of his exile and of the * Burton, En
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectwedgwoo, bookyear1913
