Back in 1993 I attempted to deal with the whiteware - white granite problem
in a note to the Newsletter to the Council for Northeast Historical
Archaeology. This article was referred to by Alasdair in his comment on
white granite wares. Because the CNEHA Newsletter is a regional journal, I
thought it might help to post the article.
Thoughts Towards a User's Guide to Ceramic Assemblages, Part IV: Some
Thoughts on Classification of White Earthenwares
George L. Miller URS Corporation
Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology Newsletter, No. 26, November
1993
Classification of English white-bodied refined wares has presented a
problem for archaeologists. Most classification systems for these wares
have been based on visible traits, such as cream color or blue tint to the
glaze, or vitrification of the body. Classic definitions for cream, pearl,
white, and white granite wares are static and oversimplified. All of these
wares evolved during their periods of production, and there was a great
deal of variety within the types due to the fact that there were well over
a hundred potters producing them. William Evans (1970) published a
collection of formulas for bodies and glazes from a number of potters in
1846 which illustrates the great diversity of formulas used by the various
potters for these wares and their glazes. When attempting to define the
refined white earthenwares by one or two simple traits, one limits our
understanding of the evolution of those wares. In the case of the
distinction between whiteware and white granite, the resulting
identification will be inconsistent with the way the potters classified and
priced their products. Unless the changes in these wares are taken into
consideration, the resulting classification will be inconsistent with the
classification system used by the potters who made them and the merchants
who sold them. In short, if our classification does not match that of the
potters and merchants selling the wares, it will not be possible to scale
them for the study of purchase patterns.
Static definitions of cream, pearl, white, and white granite wares are
useful in establishing chronological control because the types can be
associated with limited time periods. Unfortunately, the wares themselves
were not static. They evolved as tastes changed, and as a result of
competition between the potters to produce cheaper wares. For example,
creamware became lighter through time. These changes mean the creamware of
the 1760s is different from the CC ware of the 1780s and different still
from the CC ware of the 1820s and 1860s. White granite, which evolved from
the stone chinas and ironstone in the early 1840s, was almost always
vitrified in the early period of production. By the 1870s, however, much
of it was fired below the temperature necessary to produce a vitrified
ware. If one defines white granite on the basis of vitrification, then
much of what the potters and merchants would have called white granite in
the post-1870 period would be classified as a white ware. This becomes a
problem when one is trying to establish the expenditure patterns
represented by an archaeological assemblage. For the study of the wares in
terms of their cost, it is essential that the classification of the vessels
be as consistent as possible with that used by the potters and merchants
dealing in the wares. This paper is an attempt to provide some insights on
the classification of these wares as they evolved at different points in
time.
Thoughts on the Relationship Among the White Earthenwares, Chinese
Porcelain, and Bone China
Creamware represented a major change in direction for the
Staffordshire pottery industry away from white salt-glazed stoneware and
the quest for the secret of porcelain. When Wedgwood perfected his version
of creamware, he and his partner Thomas Bentley went on to market it by
selling sets to Queen Charlotte of England and Catherine the Great of
Russia. Wedgwood and Bentley were able to promote creamware to the point
where it could compete with porcelain in status. This was a major
breakthrough for the Staffordshire ceramic industry, and the production of
creamware expanded tremendously in the 1760s and 1770s. Popularity,
however, does not last forever. As the public grew tired of creamware, the
other potters began to experiment to find a product to catch the consumers'
attention. The setback that the English porcelain industry had suffered
due to the demand created for creamware began to ease, and the porcelain
industry again began to advance.
In 1768 William Cookworthy took out a patent for producing a
Chinese-style hard-paste porcelain using kaolin and china stone from
Cornwall, England. Richard Champion was able to renew Cookworthy's patent
in 1774; however, the use of the kaolin and china stone was available to
others so long as they did not produce porcelain (Hughes 1960:110). Having
the materials to produce porcelain, but not being able to produce it
because of Champion's patent, some of the Staffordshire potters began to
produce a ware that they called "China glaze" by at least 1775. This is
the origin of pearlware (Miller 1987). China glaze can be distinguished
from pearlware and provide archaeologists with a meaningful chronological
indicator. As a ware type, it would have the following characteristics:
1) A blue-tinted glaze that gave the whole vessel a bluish tint in
imitation of Chinese porcelain; 2) Blue painted and printed patterns in a
Chinese-style pattern; and 3) Some of the vessel forms would be in a
Chinese style, such as the handleless Chinese tea bowl shape for cups and
undercut footrings on plates.
As a group, these traits cluster between ca. 1775 and ca. 1812. They
seem to be pretty much out of style by the end of the War of 1812. The
important thing to keep in mind here is that the bluing was added to copy
Chinese porcelain in a product that was called China glaze.
Josiah Wedgwood was under pressure from his partner Thomas Bentley to
produce something along the lines of China glaze in the late 1770s (Miller
1987). He referred to his new product as "Pearl White" and referred to it
as a whiteware. Wedgwood used the cobalt to make his ware white in
appearance, not to make it look like Chinese porcelain. His term never
really caught on, and later scholars changed it to pearlware. If we
consider the floral painted patterns on vessels in which the bluing can
only be seen in the footring as pearlware, then we have a ware that would
date from ca. 1780 to ca. 1830. Pearlware starts showing up in underglaze
colors such as mustard yellow, olive green, brown, and blue around 1795,
according to Ivor Noel Hume. These polychrome painted wares are rarely in
Chinese-style patterns (Reimer 1991).
For the most part, these wares will show up on American sites
following the Revolutionary War. The exception would be in areas that were
occupied by the British. Pearl white went through its own evolution at the
Wedgwood factory, where there were at least six formulas for the pearlware
body from 1815 to 1846 (Delhome 1977). Pearlware production at the
Wedgwood plant continued up into the 20th century. The later pearlware,
however, does not have any blue tint so would be classified as a whiteware
by historical archaeologists. Llewellynn Jewitt described Wedgwood's
pearlware of 1865 as being "not a pearl of great price, but one for
ordinary use and of moderate cost" (Godden 1969:396). Some post-1860
Wedgwood pieces are impressed with the "Pearl" as part of the maker's mark.
Those that I have seen would be classified as whiteware by archaeologists,
which points out the problems in our classification system. Archaeologists
have a definition for ware types that is related to a period of time, which
is fine. However, there is another classification used by the potters and
merchants, which evolves. That needs to be kept in mind when working with
prices and consumer behavior.
Whiteware has been a major problem for historical archaeologists. Its
origins are poorly understood, and until recently very little documentation
had been published on its development. We have been using 1820 as the
introduction date for whiteware, which is the date that Ivor Noel Hume
(1970:130) estimates that pearlware was being replaced by whiteware. In a
recent article John des Fontaines (1990:4) documented the production of
whiteware by the Wedgwood factory by early 1805. Like China glaze,
whiteware appears to have been developed as a copy of porcelain. Josiah
Spode's success with his bone china appears to have been the impetus for
change. Spode's bone china fires very white, and its popularity led the
earthenware potters to move towards a whiter-looking ware (des Fontaines
1990:7; Miller 1980:17).
There were different ways of producing a whiteware. Given that there
were over 100 potters in Staffordshire, it is not surprising that there
were different approaches taken to the problem. The simplest solution was
to cut back on the amount of the cobalt used so that it just countered any
yellow tint in the glaze, but did not create a blue tint to the ware. We
have all seen wares that are white except for a very light blue tint in the
glaze gathered around the footring. Many people have classified these as
pearlware. We need to keep the intent of the potter in mind. If it was to
produce a whiteware, then the vessel should not be classified as pearlware
because of a small amount of cobalt used to achieve a white appearance.
White wares with a small amount of blue in the footring area probably show
up on American sites as early as the end of the War of 1812 and seem to
last into the 1840s.
White wares without any indication of the presence of cobalt were also
probably showing up on American sites after the War of 1812, and they are
still in production. Definition of these wares becomes very complicated
because pearlware and CC wares appear to merge together. For example,
Wedgwood's wares of the 1840 to 1860 period bearing the impressed mark
"PEARL" do not have any indication of the use of cobalt (des Fontaines
1990:6).
Use of the terms China glaze, pearlware, and whiteware are very rare
in Staffordshire potters' price-fixing lists and invoices from 1780 through
the 19th century. The only undecorated wares that I have seen listed in
invoices for wares sent to the American market prior to the early 1840s are
CC ware. Clearly, all of the China glaze, pearlware, and whitewares for
this period were decorated and would have been classified by their type of
decoration, e.g., edged, dipt, painted, or printed. In invoices for the
period between 1824 and 1858, CC ware ranged from between 5% and 13% of
wares sold to country stores (Miller 1990). CC ware is the potters'
shorthand for cream color or creamware. Again, our definition of what is
creamware falls short of what creamware became following the 1820s. It is
very white and clearly is being classified as a whiteware by most
historical archaeologists. Given that undecorated China glaze, pearlware,
and whiteware are not in the potters' price lists or invoices, the plain
undecorated vessels that we recover from contexts dating before the early
1840s are most certainly CC ware. Here again, we have two typologies.
These vessels are whiteware by our chronological typology, but CC ware in
the potters' terms, and that is how one needs to classify them to work with
economic scaling of assemblages.
Early in the 1840s another plain undecorated ware begins to be
imported in quantity to the American market. That ware is what most of the
potters called white granite ware. It has been called ironstone by most
archaeologists. Ironstone is the name that Charles Mason gave to his stone
china in his 1813 patent. In a sense, ironstone is a brand name that
became generic. The use of the term ironstone and its dates of production
have led to some confusion in the dating of late 19th cetnruy assemblages.
In his article on mean ceramic dating Stanley South lists "Ironstone and
Granite China" and gives the dates 1813 to 1900 with a mean date of 1857.
Mason's ironstone was but one of several stone chinas that began production
around 1800. These wares, like China glaze, were most commonly copies of
Chinese porcelain and also had blue-tinted glazes. The stone chinas were
rarely undecorated, and they are rather rare on American sites (Miller
1991:9-10). The shift comes in the early 1840s when the potters began
producing what they called white granite.
White granite, like the other ware types, went through its own
evolution. In the beginning period, the term pearl came back into use in
names such as pearl stone china, pearl white ironstone, and pearl white
granite. Sometimes the blue is a tint in the glaze, and sometimes it is a
tint added to the body (Miller 1980:18-19, 1991:9-10). The wares from the
1840s through the 1860s are generally vitrified. Molded marlys such as the
Ceres pattern are common as are geometric shapes with eight, ten, and
twelve sides. These give way to plain round shapes without molding. By
the late 1870s it is not uncommon to find white granite wares that are not
vitrified. Its price had been dropping, and the potters were cutting their
production costs. When we define white granite wares as vitrified, we
again are locking into a definition that might be helpful for chronological
purposes, but it presents problems in scaling collections for the study of
consumption patterns.
These wares began to change after the Civil War. During the war, the
American tariff on imported ceramics was raised to over 50%. A large
greenback currency was issued to finance the war, resulting in an inflated
currency. Under these conditions, the cost of English ceramics almost
doubled, which encouraged a number of English potters to move to Trenton,
New Jersey, and begin production of American-made white granite. It took
these potters a period of adjustment to the new clays and other materials
they had to work with, so many of the early American white granite wares
were heavily crazed. Thus, white granite with heavy crazing probably is
American made and dates from ca. 1865 to ca. 1890. This problem was worked
on, and the wares improved as the American industry mastered their raw
materials.
As white granite began losing its appeal, the potters cut its price
and found ways to make it cheaper. One way was to fire it at lower
temperature, and thus, the later white granite ware is often not vitrified.
The later wares are usually unmolded, whereas the earlier ones commonly had
embossed molding on the marly. In summary, the following traits would be
helpful to keep in mind when separating white wares from white granite
wares.
1) For pre-1845 assemblages, there will not be any white granite ware.
2) After ca. 1820, plain undecorated vessels are CC ware.
3) After the War of 1812, CC ware was mostly confined to toilet and
kitchen wares such as bowls and chamber pots. Some plates are still
being sold in CC ware, but teaware is very rare.
4) Importation of white granite ware began in the early 1840s. In
post-1840s contexts the undecorated teaware is most likely white
granite. The same is true to a lesser extent for tableware.
5) If it is vitrified, it most likely is white granite.
6) If it has embossed molding around the marly, it most likely is white
granite.
7) If the body, rather than the glaze, has been tinted with cobalt to
make it look light blue or gray, it is most likely white granite.
Some white granite also has blue-tinted glaze. The term pearl came
back into use in the post-1840 period in names such as "Pearl China,"
"Pearl Stone Ware," "Pearl White Ironstone," "Pearl White," and
"Opaque Pearl." Despite incorporating the name pearl, these marks
occur on white granite wares.
There will be body sherds where one cannot distinguish white granite
from whiteware. For those cases, one could use a category of
whiteware/white granite. One should keep the use of this category to a
minimum.
It should be kept in mind that while undecorated or molded white
granite wares were the dominant type for the period ca. 1850 to ca. 1890,
these wares also came with standard types of decoration such as shell
edging, painted, and printed patterns. When you find white granite wares
with color decoration, the decoration will be more important for
classification than the ware type. Therefore, one does not need to be
quite as concerned with identification of the type of ware as in the case
for undecorated vessels.
Acknowledgments
My research on the chronology and identification of white-firing
earthenwares has been funded by an NEH Fellowship to Winterthur Museum in
1991 and by an NEH grant (RK-20004) titled "English and American Ceramics,
1846-1917: Prices, Index Values, and Chronology." This paper is meant to
generate a dialogue on the problems in separating and dating of
white-firing earthenwares and is a call for information on the subject. A
more formal paper on the issues raised here will be one of the products of
my NEH grant on English and American Ceramics, 1846-1917. I would like to
thank Wade Catts, Rebecca Tinsman, and Justine Withers for reading and
commenting on this paper.
References
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1977 Pearlware. Wedgwood: Its Competitors and Imitators 1800-1830.
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Evans, William
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practical sources for the especial use of working
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des Fontaines, John K.
1990 Wedgwood Whiteware. Proceedings of the Wedgwood Society (London)
13:1-8.
Godden, Geoffrey A.
1971 The Illustrated Guide to Mason's Patent Ironstone China and
Related Wares: Stone China, New Stone, Granite China -- and Their
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Hughes, G. Bernard
1960 English and Scottish Earthenware 1660-1860. Abbey Fine Arts,
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Miller, George L.
1980 Classification and Economic Scaling of 19th Century Ceramics.
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Noël Hume, Ivor
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Reimer, Gretchen M.
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