Baker and Co Ltd
of The Fenton Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Telephone: Hanley 48114. Cables: “Granite, Stoke-on-Trent”.
Established 1790
Ralph Bourne and William Baker were working by the end of the century.
By the late 1820’s Bourne and Baker, in partnership with John Bourne, had acquired an additional works opposite the first.
The business included a flint mill by 1829.
This is a Chintz Plate with Birds and is marked Baker & Co England with the trademark being a standing Lion in a Shield. It is decorated with Exotic Tropical Birds, Yellows Roses over all and has a soft lavender dabbed with a lighter muted tones of very pale lavender over all in the background. It measures 9″ and is in a hexagon shape with a black outlined edge.
1833 With the deaths of John Bourne and William Baker, the partnership was dissolved, and then for a short time the business was carried on by Ralph Bourne, William Baker the younger, and John Baker.
By the early 1840’s William Baker was running it alone and was then using “machinery for the exercise of the potters’ operations” in addition to the mill.
The business was subsequently carried on by William Baker and Company, makers of printed, sponged, and pearl-white granite ware for export in the early 1880s at the works between Manor and Fountain Streets; the works on the south side of City Road was by then an encaustic tile works, apparently still in the hands of the Baker family.
The potworks flourished under William Baker’s management and by the middle of the nineteenth century with almost 500 employees was the biggest firm in Fenton.
William Baker also described himself in the return as “Joint Coal Proprietor” because the partnership rented 18 acres of land on the south side of Fenton House which belonged to Lane End Chapel. Here they opened a colliery called Glebe Colliery which supplied coal to the factory and to other pottery manufacturers in the area. Next to the colliery they opened a brick-works served by an adjacent clay pit.
1929 Listed Exhibitor. Manufacturers of Semi-Porcelain Tea and Dinner Ware, White Granite and Hotel Ware. Specialities: Old English Printed and Handpainted Decorations.
Marks
Fenton, The name of the individual pattern is often included. “Ltd” was added in 1893 c. 1839-1932
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W BAKER & CO BAKER & CO |
name incorporated in many printed or impressed marks. From 1860 on the name of the pattern is often included.”Ltd” was added from 1893. |
