The earlier Anglo-Roman and Saxon vases of England appear to have ceased prior to the Norman invasion, the Saxons having exten sively used horns, leather bottles, glass vases, and other materials ; but the manufacture perhaps revived under the Plantagenets. The earlier English pottery consists of encaustic tiles of red brick, with relief, sunk or inlaid or laid on patterns, used onlyfor religious edifices, in the latter part or the 12th or beginning of the 13th century ; the oldest ornamented with heraldic bearings or badges, those of 13th-15th, with elegant foliage, and arranged in sets of single tiles of 4, 9, or 16 to the set, with heraldic bearings, mounted knights, grotesques, and inscriptions, till they were superseded in the 16th century by Flanders or gaily tiles of foreign manufacture. Tiles of all these classes have been found in the principal old religious edifices of England, and appear to have been made in potteries attached to the monasteries, kilns having been discovered at Bawsey near Lynn, Droitwich, Malvern, and Saredon, some built of semicircular arches separated from each other by a massive pier.
In manuscripts of the Norman period earthen vessels are represented, and the cruskyn or cruske is mentioned as early as A.D. 1324, and in works of the 14th century, the godet or godette about the same period, the costrel or flask, hung by a strap to the side, and tyys or cups. The accounts of the executors of Eleanor, wife of Edward 1., mention a payment for pitchers to Juliana the potter ; but her name appears to be foreign, and it is uncertain whether they were not Flemish ; in ex. 1446, the accounts of Sir T. Howard contain orders for payment to the potters of Horpesley for earthenware jugs, and so do those of Edward IV., and in 1512 they were in use in the household of the Earl of Northumberland, and continue to be mentioned till the close of the 16th century.
The existence of early English potteries has been proved by the discoveries of moulds as old as Edward IIL, and of jogs, pitchers, costrils, and other vessels at a depth, and under circumstances showing that seine must have existed as early as the 11th century. They are made of a coarse brittle brown paste, covered with a black or green plumbiferous, or leaden glaze ; some of the most remarkable are wine or water pitchers, moulded in the form of Norman knights of the time of Henry IL, or with heads of that of Edward II. This ware was continued till the commencement of the 18th century, and often has dates in the 17th century ; a late pottery of it was at Wrotham. As early as the beginning of the 17th century Dutch potters are said to have established potteries of Delft ware at Fulham and Lambeth, and wine pots dated 1642 and the following years, and other vessels of this ware, are known till the close of the 17th century. Delft was made at Liverpool about the same period, and at Lambeth till a late period, but during these centuries, pots or Bellarmines, from Flanders, were extensively imported, although this ware appears to have been made in England at the time, while porcelain, mentioned as early in France as 1370, in the reign of Charles le Bel, began to be imported into England in the reign of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, in 1587, and
was later called China, and came from Venice ; a heavy duty was laid upon it by Cromwell. But the chief seat of the English potteries was in Staffordshire, at Bursletn, where coarse culinary vessels of red, brown, and mottled pottery were made. It is here that in 1670 were made the butter-pots of cylindrical shape, and of sufficient capacity to hold 14 lbs. of butter, the eize and quality of which was regulated by an act'of parliament. The vicinity supplied various clays suited for the different wares, and a lead glaze was obtained by the use of galena, or sulphate of lead. In 1680, salt glazing was accidentally discovered. In 1685, white and brown stone ware was made from local clays, and Crouch ware in 1690, glazed by salt and red lead. In the same year the Elers, brothers, of Nuremberg, established themselves at Bradwell, and attempted to produce an imitation of the red Japanese ware; but their secret having been discovered by Astbury, they removed to Lambeth or Chelsea in 1710. Astbury, who at first produced red ware, afterwards made a white dipped, or white stone ware of Bide ford pipeclay and Shelton marl, and in 1720, the use of flint was discovered, and slip kilns for boiling the clays ; and plaster of Paris moulds were subsequently introduced. Improvements in the working of the clay were made by Booth about 1750, but the great stride in the potteries was made by Wedgwood, who produced an improved cream ware in 1759, which was named Queens ware, after Queen Charlotte. From 1760-62, he invented six different kinds of ware ; he was the first to introduce a classical style and fine modelling, by the aid of Flaxman, into the art, and showed as much taste in the moulding of his pieces as excellence in the ware, which, made of the fine grey marl from under the coal strata, produced a material uninjured by the vicissitudes of temperature, of a cane colour, and at first ornamented by a rude border, was subsequently covered with a pattern ; he also made terra cottas, basalt, jasper, granite, and onyx wares, especially plaques, medallions, and works of tasto and vertu of a blue jasper ware, with white figures in relief, which obtained a great European reputation. As early as 1767 the discovery was made of applying printed designs from copper-plates to pottery, which was thus decorated at Liverpool by Carver and returned to Burslem. Sarah Elkin, a servant of Wedg wood, first discovered a successful method of gilding earthenware, and J. Hancock, about 1800, used a process resembling water-gilding for the same purpose.