Ironstone

How to read it

Mason took out a patent in 1813 for what he called Ironstone China. “Ironstone” suggested strength and “China” suggested porcelain, the Canadian Museum of History explains, but it was in fact an earthenware. The patent, as summarised in Chaffers's Marks and Monograms (1912 edition), was for a process for the improvement of English porcelain using the slag of ironstone, pounded and ground in water, with flint, Cornwall stone, clay and blue oxide of cobalt. Keele University's Raven Mason Collection notes that it was probably Charles James's father, Miles Mason, who drove the experiments, and that the ware was durable, cheap enough for more households than porcelain, and suited to large dinner services. It was not the first body of its kind: the Fitzwilliam Museum records a patent for a stone china body taken out by John and William Turner in 1800, and stone chinas from Spode, Davenport and others competing with Mason's.

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Mason's Patent Ironstone China and who made it later

Charles James Mason was declared bankrupt in 1848, and Francis Morley bought most of his moulds, engravings and equipment (Keele; Chaffers dates Morley's purchase of the moulds and patent to 1850). Morley's business passed to G. L. Ashworth & Brothers, who kept making Mason's patterns; Chaffers describes their mark as a crown and “Mason's Patent Ironstone China, Ashworth's”. The Ashworth name was used until March 1968, when the firm became Mason's Ironstone China Ltd, and it became part of the Wedgwood Group in 1973. Mason's own marks varied: a vase in the Fitzwilliam Museum has a view of the factory with FENTON / STONE WORKS / C.J.M. & Co in a wreath and STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES GRANITE CHINA around it, since Mason sometimes called the ware granite china.

The same kind of ware under other names

Other potters sold similar bodies as Stone China, Granite China, Pearl Stone and Dresden China, the Canadian Museum of History lists. Later in the century, when British ironstone began to compete with cheap French porcelain, one potter exporting to Canada marked some of his “French China”, and Edward Walley marked some of his “Paris White”. This later ironstone was heavier and often sparsely decorated, the museum says, the forerunner of modern hotel ware, used in farmhouses, inns and hotels and on ships. Chaffers records that Spode and other makers sold so much opaque porcelain in France under the name of ironstone china that French potters were put out of business.

American ironstone and the royal arms

American potteries made the same ware and often called it white granite. Barber's Marks of American Potters (1904) records ironstone china or white granite marked with versions of the British coat of arms by Trenton, New Jersey, makers: William Young's Sons used the English arms from 1858 to 1879, Ott & Brewer's marks for white granite were variations of the British coat of arms, and John Moses & Sons used several from about 1895. A royal coat of arms over IRONSTONE CHINA is not on its own a sign of a British maker. Homer Laughlin's first pottery at East Liverpool, Ohio, made ironstone china until 1877, e-WV records, before the company's Fiesta.