Deptford Creek potteries

 

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working down the Lewisham bank of Deptford Creek up to and just past the railway bridge - and have been saying continually that we need to look at potteries.

 

It seems very strange and unlikely that one of the major industries of Deptford in the 18th and 19th centuries was the manufacture of pottery. Most this clearly was the sort of rough stuff that we don’t really think of as pottery - chimney pots and sewer pipes and so on –rather than your actual fancy ceramics. There was at one point a short burst of ‘Deptford Ware’ but that was not really relevant to what I am writing here – and we should also remember that there are other Deptfords in this country and in America, most of which have important potteries.

 

I’ve been saying all along in these articles that I’ve been held up for writing about the potteries because I had been unable to get hold of a definitive article by archaeologist Derek Garrod which gives a breakdown of all the different potteries in Deptford.  I tried to get a copy from the Kent Archeological Rescue Unit and unfortunately the first one they sent me got lost in the post, They have now sent me another copy which they say has come from the collection of one of their members so I think I’ll send it back to them once I’ve read and scanned the article, And I’m very grateful to them for their help.

 

The article does indeed give details of the various potteries and including the names of some of the operators of them 1800. The earlier sites are sometimes very difficult for me because I don’t have access to archival material like the rate books - a key source for any local historian. This is because of the difficulties of access to both Greenwich and Lewisham local history collections – and that is probably the next thing I’m going to start complaining about here!

 

So I now have information on where the various potteries were in a fairly limited area. There is at least one which I know was sited on a part the creek which Derek Garrod didn’t cover – and I’ll get to that separately and later. Many of the potteries which he does cover are not on the actual Creekside and so of not applicable here. But there are a lot of them and we should appreciate the size of the industry.  There is a more information about the one on the Val de Travers site which I included last week but also I’m surprised, and a bit gratified, that I have found another pottery which he doesn’t mention.

 

There were probably potteries on the Creekside  from the 17^th century and a John Hall was described as the ’potter by the Tide Mill’  as early as 1680.

 

The last Deptford pottery only closed in 1961 and this was not on Creekside but nearby on what is now the Sue Godfrey Nature Park in Bronze Street. It was known as the Upper Pottery– and I have a sort of memory of being shown the remains, perhaps in the early 1970s. Sprigged stoneware was made there and can be found marked with the date of 1701. There were maybe four kilns. This was run by members of the Parry family from around 1730 until 1891 when it was taken over by a James Carroll. By 1918 it was part of the Tamworth firm of Gibbs & Canning. They eventually closed in 1961 by which time they were making oven linings and insulators. I am told that a wall is built of pieces of pottery – but is now all under plant growth.

 

The second oldest of the Creekside potteries appear to be those near the tide mill – and I am not sure exactly where these were or how near is ‘near’.   The address was apparently ‘Neathercoats Wharf’ and this was in what was once called ‘Slaughterhouse Lane’ – which is what is now ‘Creekside’.   One of them was run by an Aaron Rawlings and then by his widow, Mary. She was succeeded by a James Forrester in 1760 and then by a succession of others until 1800.   The other was run by a Matthew Barker and seems to have closed by 1761.

 

It may be possible that these are the forerunners of the pottery on Evelyn Wharf which I wrote about back in February.  In the late 1850s that wharf seems to have been acquired by a William Parry as a pottery. He was only there for about six years but used his short spell there to advertise energetically. He made and sold ‘redware’ - sewer pipes, chimney stacks and flower pots.

 

And so we come to the Lower Pottery .  A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Val de Travers works on Sun Wharf and mentioned that it had been a pottery.  This was there in 1730 and belonged to a John Willson, followed by Isaac Parry, Thomas Hopkins and William Northern. I wonder if it was part of the property which was auctioned in 1832 as 14 lots in a ’freehold premises adjoining Deptford Creek’. This included potteries in the occupation of Isaac Parry.  In 1858 it was taken over by Isaac Solly Lester and Benjamin Biggs – more about them in a moment and they certainly were not potters

 

Ownership and/or management of several of these sites were by Isaac Parry and other members of the Parry family. There were in fact several generations of Isaac Parry’s, fathers and sons. The first traced was born in Deptford in 1711 and I suppose it is not inconceivable that he came from a family already involved in the trade.  He must have been running the ‘Upper Pottery' – the Bronze Street one - from 1734 to 1744  and the Lower Pottery from 1755. A wealthy man with property in central London and also property in ‘West Cheam from where he sourced his clay.

 

He died in 1764. He had two sons, Isaac, born in 1737 and John. The third generation Isaac Parry was born in 1766.  All of them describe their occupation as ‘potter’- and in 1801 their kiln house and coal store are mentioned following thefts.  This third Isaac Parry served on several local institutions – was on the Poor Law Board and on the boards of local medical ‘dispensaries’.   In 1811 the firm was able to declare a dividend although in 1814 bankruptcy was threatened and survived.

 

A fourth generation Isaac Parry was born in 1801. In charge of the firm in 1847 he advertised his bricks for sale – ‘yellow seconds, cutters and pickings.  His brickfield was in Peckham Lane ‘opposite the Asylum’ and in an area where a lot of house building was taking place. He is also said to have made crucibles and sanitary ware.   He had two sons, one - George - died in 1845 after a short illness‘. Isaac died in 1854 and so a fifth generation took over the business.

 

Of the two sites – the Upper Pottery went on to be taken over in 1891 and to survive in other ownership until 1961. 

 

I covered the Lower Pottery two weeks ago when the site became the head office of asphalt manufactures, Val de Travers.  It had operated as a pottery since 1730 and was taken over by the Parry family in 1840 when it went into other use.  A drawing from the early 1840s is thought to show the Lower Pottery.  The Parry family for whatever reason no longer used it and it was taken over by Thomas Hopkins but by 1846 was empty.  By 1858 it was in the hands of Isaac Solly Lester, Benjamin Biggs and Thomas Phipson.  They are an interesting trio but not I think anything to do with pottery manufacture. Isaac Solly Lister was quite upmarket with city links but had been in partnership with Biggs in a nuisance creating City naphtha works. Biggs had been involved with Frank Hills' brother Edwin in artificial manure production. Phipson was a professor of analytic chemistry.  I have my own theories as to what they were doing there – but that must wait for the result of someone else’s – non pottery related – research.

 

So finally we come to the pottery on Evelyn Wharf which is not covered in Derek Garrod's article and which I wrote about in February

 

William Parry was on the wharf only six years until in 1864 he petitioned for bankruptcy and sold the lease on the wharf.  I commented on the long court case relevant to his bankruptcy for the recovery of £16. 12s 2d. – And thought that even in 1860 it wasn’t a vast amount of money to start a major legal action on.  It was confusing in that nearly everyone involved in the case from the bankrupt owner, the creditors and even the lawyer had the name of Parry – one whom turned out to be William Parry’s mother. Later arguments in the case were about who it was who actually submitted the written petition of bankruptcy and what their names were.  The Parry family had a long and distinguished record as potters on a number of sites along Deptford Creek and William Parry’s short stay at Evelyn Wharf is only a small episode in that. It’s a pity it seems to have ended with a family row.

 

The Deptford Creekside potters seems to have consisted of a backbone of five generations of Parrys with some others.  We have not finished with pottery yet and we will eventually get to other one, not mentioned by Derek Garrod as we near the Thames.