The Majolica of the George Skey Wilnecoate Works

Born in 1819 into a Quaker family, George Skey was an affluent mine owner who operated coal mines at Wilnecoate, Tamworth. Upon discovering substantial deposits of clay on his property Skey decided to enter the pottery business. 

The George Skey Wilncoate Works

His pottery works, George Skey & Company Ltd., was founded in 1859 but didn't begin production until 1862 producing terra-cotta utilitarian wares used in construction as well as stoves, terra cotta sewage pipes, tiles, chimneys, bottles, crocks and glazed brick. He then began potting conservatory items.

Female workers at the Skey Works

Skey registered design for a terra-cotta gas stove

George Skey chimney pot

1881 Skey trade ad

George Skey stoneware crock

Advertising ginger beer bottle for Skey Wilncoate Works

By 1864 Skey expanded his company to encompass the production of decorative earthenware: fountains, vases, tazzas, brackets, pedestals, flower vases, mignonette boxes, fern stands, tiles and garden seats. He also made lined cane ware game dishes and began the production of porcelain items for construction.

Skey cane ware game dish with liner

Skey monumental terra cotta lion made for 

the Tamworth Club in Staffordshire

Majolica was introduced at the Wilnecoate Works in the 1860s under the brand name Rustic Ware. Designed to imitate wood, the company used a limited palette of color glazes over an ochre earthenware body. The majority of items made by the company were garden items, but soon the company expanded to table and desk items as well as porcelain. In The Ceramic Art of Great Britain by Llewelyn Frederick William Jewitt (1878) the ware was discussed thus:  

"In "Rustic ware," vases, garden-seats, flower-pots, brackets, fern-stands, and an infinite variety of beautiful articles are made. This "Rustic ware" is a fine buff coloured terra-cotta, glazed with a rich brown glaze, and sometimes heightened with a green tinge, just sufficient to give it a remarkably pleasing effect. The modelling (sic) of some of these goods is highly artistic."

The Skey display at the South Staffordshire Industrial & Fine Art Exhibition, 1869

Skey's Rustic Ware fern stand

Skey Rustic Ware fern stand

Skey Rustic Ware fern stand base

Skey Rustic Ware jardiniere stand

Skey hanging basket, called a "suspender" in the company literature

Rustic Ware suspender

Floral presentation piece in porcelain for Herbert Ward with majolica glaze

Skey shell Rustic Ware ice container

Skey majolica Rustic Ware wall pocket

Skey majolica epergne 

Skey majolica Rustic Ware wall shelf with owl

Skey majolica Rustic Ware wall shelf with monkey

Skey majolica deer wall shelf

Rustic Ware spill vase

Skey Rustic Ware pen and ink stand

Skey bear pitcher often erroneously identified as Holdcroft

A pair of Skey Medici lions

Skey majolica Medici lion

Skey desk watch holder stand with pin cushion

Napoleon Bonaparte salt glazed jug

Skey porcelain shell center

Advertisement from 1929

Advertisement from 1929

Majolica production continued at the Wilnecoate Works for another twenty years but ceased with the retirement of Skey in 1892. When Skey died in 1897, the company was sold but remained in production producing stoneware crocks, tiles, porcelain sanitary items and decorative terra-cotta until 1935 when it was acquired by the Doultons. The pottery was demolished in 1980. 

Not always marked, Skey used the marks shown below on his decorative ware.

Skey Works, 1934