SPODE’S STONE CHINA BEFORE MASON’S IRONSTONE CHINA ?

Jean-Pierre Dion                                                          May 25,  2024

Soup Bowl  stamped in blue  Mason's Patent Ironstone China. Angela Grant kindly pointed out that the original Mason no. 1 pattern was reintroduced later and this plate was made in the early 20th century.

It is in the early 1800’s that the production of whiteware known as Ironstone and its variants began. Marvelous books and papers have been written about the principal proponents, Turner, Spode and Mason, notably by Whiter and by Godden. Charles James Mason’s Patent Ironstone China was granted on July 23, 1813 (see G. Bernard Hughes, p. 164, English and Scottish Earthenware, 1961) and reached the market on or before December 11, 1813 (see The Morning Chronicle ad reproduced below).  To this day, the date of Josiah Spode II invention of his Stone China has remained a mystery, despite years of thorough research by Whiter, Godden and others. Both innovations were in the footsteps of Turner’s Patent Porcelain or China of 1800. We recently discovered a newspaper advertisement of the time proving definitively that Spode’s newly invented Stone China reached the market on or before July 26, 1813.

This ad by Mary Dean, dated 26th July 1813, appeared in the Exeter Flying Post of the 19th of August 1813, p. 4. It refers explicitly to Spode’s newly invented stone china. But this may even have been introduced on or before Feb 1813 as the following ad, by Elizabeth Ring, would suggest. Notice the words ‘’Stone China’’ and ‘’newly invented table china’’. In an undated trade card (possibly of 1814-1815) by the same Elizabeth Ring, quoted in Godden’s Guide to Ironstone Stone and Granite Ware, 1999, p. 64, there is another reference to the newly invented stone china.  

Ad from Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, Feb 20, 1813, p. 3

Godden (op. cit., p. 74) argues that Mason did not wait long after the granting of the patent before producing his Ironstone China, since it was on the market at the latest in December 1813, according to an ad from The Times. We found a similar ad from the Morning Chronicle of December 11, 1813,  (see below) but no mention of sales of Mason’s Patent Ironstone China is recorded before this ad.

The Mason Ware was still new in January and February 1814, and worth stressing its qualities once more. See the following ad from The Liverpool Mercury of January 14^th, 1814.

The newspapers ads thus establish the legitimate claim that Spode’s newly invented stone china reached the market before the Mason’s Patent Ironstone China did.

Why the search for this hard durable whiteware?

The Staffordshire potters of the period 1770-1813 were trying to create a white earthenware that would imitate the porcelain from China. There were multiple reasons for that, including the popularity of Chinese tea demanding teaware[1], the duty on porcelain that stopped most of the flow of Chinese porcelain, the American revolution following the Boston tea party, the necessity of replacing some broken pieces of expensive Chinese dinner sets and the development of transfer printing on china. (See Robert Copeland, ‘’Spode and the China Trade’’, American Ceramic Circle Bulletin, no 2, 1980, p. 97-112; see also J. Goldsmith Phillips, China-Trade Porcelain, 1956) The contributors to those developments were Wedgwood, Adams, Turner, Spode and Mason. For the fascinating history of their contributions, I strongly recommend the book by Leonard Whiter: Spode, a History of the Family, Factory and Wares from 1733 to1833, Barry and Jenkins, 1989, and the two books by Geoffrey A. Godden:  The Illustrated Guide to Mason’s Patent Ironstone China, Barry and Jenkins, 1971 and the Guide to Ironstone, Stone & Granite Ware, Antique Collectors’ Club, 1999…

[1] ‘’It was largely through this commerce in tea that the English came to control the lion’s share of the China Trade throughout the 18^th century’’ Goldsmith Phillips, p. 24