Eureka Pottery Majolica

Eureka majolica Merry Xmas and Happy New Year dessert stand

Very little is known about the Eureka Pottery. What we do know is that the company was founded in 1883 by Leon Weil when he took over the Franklin Pottery at the corner of Prince St. and Meade St. in Millham Township, New Jersey, an area now part of Trenton, Mercer County.

Map of Millham, NJ

Location of  Eureka Pottery at Prince and Mead St.

Leon Weil was a relative stranger to the pottery business, having formerly been involved in the liquor distribution business in Philadelphia. He fled Philadelphia to avoid creditors after the failure of his company and settled in New Jersey where he established the Eureka pottery with money from his wife’s family. His pottery experience was peripheral, having dabbled in the business around Philadelphia for several years. Eureka was a small, single kiln operation. Unfortunately, Weil’s lack of experience in the trade forced him into bankruptcy after only one year, closing his business in February 1884.

After the failure of Weil's investment, the pottery reverted to property owner Thomas Whitehead from whom the property was leased, who offered the pottery to Noah Bock and Charles Bock. They continued use of the Eureka site and name, expanding to a larger site nearby they renamed the Eureka Porcelain Works, potting earthenware and porcelain. There is no indication that they continued production of majolica but the possibility exists. The Bocks operated the pottery only until 1887 when it was closed by a devastating fire. It was succeeded by Pope & Lee’s Pottery in that location.

The Eureka Pottery’s majolica production was small and short lived. Several of the designs were copies of European designs while some others were clearly inspired by English predecessors, but they did make a few original designs, and the surviving marked wares confirm their high quality. 

Two designs were direct copies of Shorter & Boulton originals.

Eureka Pottery majolica pitcher

Shorter & Boulton majolica pitcher

Eureka Pottery majolica plate

Shorter & Boulton majolica plate

The company made a copy of a Schiller & Son design.

Eureka Pottery butter dish with stand

Schiller & Son cane ware butter dish

The company also made some original designs.

Eureka vase inspired by the Shorter & Boulton 

pitcher shown above

Eureka Pottery majolica plate inspired by the 

Wedgwood majolica Lincoln plate below.

Wedgwood majolica Lincoln plate

Eureka majolica Merry Xmas and Happy New Year plate

Eureka majolica potpourri jar

Eureka Pottery floral plate

The reverse of Eureka pieces are sponged with a brown glaze over a white body Marked pieces have the words EUREKA POTTERY impressed in a semicircle above TRENTON in a straight line.

Reverse of the rabbit butter stand shown above.

Attribution Hearsay

A search on the literature often attributes the well known majolica Fan pieces to Eureka but there is no proof of this. I believe this attribution was first made by Charles Rebert and later repeated by Mariann Katz-Marks in the early resources on majolica based largely on hearsay. 

Image from Charles Rebert's American Majolica 1850-1900 

showing the erroneous attribution of Shorter and Boulton Fan and 

Wardle Fan wares to Eureka

Any adscription that Eureka played in copying the Shorter & Boulton Fan pieces is unsubstantiated. 

Marked Shorter & Boulton Fan ice cream dish

The pattern certainly appeared to have been copied by a pottery in the United States but it is unknown if Eureka is responsible. It seems unlikely considering the company's short life span. There has never been a marked example found, nor do the reverses match known Eureka pieces. More evidence points to the Willets Pottery, also of Trenton, as the pottery that created these Fan copies. As such I am not including them here as credited to Eureka. For more information on the literature tying these Fan pieces to Willets Excelsior Pottery check my previous post on the Willets Pottery.

An interesting side note to the Eureka story is that shards of an unglazed example of the Eureka Merry Xmas and Happy New year plate mold were discovered on the grounds of the South Carolina Pottery Company.

There doesn't seem to be any proof as yet that the South Carolina Pottery Co. created copies from these Eureka molds but that possibility remains open. Until further information surfaces we simply don't know.

The Majolica of Shorter & Boulton

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan tea set

There are issues in approaching the narrative history of the majolica of Shorter and Boulton. One is the history itself. The company saga is a complex one involving a number of different failed partnerships before establishing success in the majolica market. Then there are the later acquisitions that expanded Shorter’s operations and the ownership and name changes that resulted.

Unfortunately, the issue of attribution may be even more complex. Shorter & Boulton rarely marked their wares. Many Shorter & Boulton designs were heavily copied by other potteries. Arsenal, Eureka and Willits in the United States have had copies of Shorter & Boulton designs attributed to them. In England, Forester and Fielding are thought to have copied them as well. The previously mentioned later acquisitions which shared the company molds add to the confusion. The only guarantee to attribution for a particular piece is the presence of an English registration mark which is rarely seen. For the sake of illustration here in this blog, I will be showing pieces believed to have been designed by Shorter & Boulton though the particular examples shown may well have been manufactured by others.

Let’s begin with the history of founder Arthur Shorter. Shorter was born in 1850, the sixth of seven children. His father Jabez Shorter was a train station master who owned a small interest in a pottery in Longton. After a brief apprenticeship with his father as a railway clerk, his innate artistic talent led Arthur to a career as a ceramics decorator at the firm of Hope & Carter in Burslem. With this experience he became an apprentice at Minton & Co. and later Bodley & Co.

Arthur Shorter 1850-1926

Around 1872 Jabez Shorter set up his two sons, Arthur and William as china dealers in Stanford. The partnership lasted until 1874 when Arthur left the company to partner with Frances Dean, William Lowe and Herbert Machin to form the pottery of Dean, Lowe, Machin & Shorter at the Parker Street Works in Hanley. After two years that partnership dissolved and Shorter established a short partnership with Robert Horne to form Shorter & Horne. That company dissolved in 1878 and the Hanley pottery and its contents were sold.

Parker Street Works in Hanley 

In 1878 Shorter established yet another partnership, this time with Joseph Bettelley and William Millward. With money derived from the sale of the Hanley pottery, Shorter, Bettelley, Millward & Co. set up business at the small Batavia Works on Copeland Street in Stoke upon Trent. James Boulton—who had experience at Wedgwood—was also part of this firm, working as an experienced oven operator. The partnership was brief as Bettelley and Millward left the company and the partnership was dissolved in November 1878. James Boulton then became Shorter’s new partner and the firm of Shorter & Boulton was founded in late 1878.

Public notice of the dissolution of Shorter, Betteley, Millward & Co.

Batavia Works, Shorter & Son, c.1960

Batavia Works, Shorter & Son, c.1960

Batavia Works,  Copeland St. pottery bottle ovens to right. c.1960

During the 1870s, Arthur Shorter married Henrietta Wilkinson. Henrietta was the sister of A.J. Wilkinson who went on to establish his own pottery in Burslem in 1885. This would prove to be greatly influential in the future history of Shorter & Boulton. 

Arthur and Henrietta Shorter [second and third from left] and four of 

their six children, [left to right] Guy, Mabel, Collie and Nora

The new company of Shorter & Boulton produced a variety of different wares, but majolica was a popular commodity in Victorian England so by 1879 the company entered the majolica market in a big way, soon becoming their main focus. Thanks to Arthur Shorter's brother John–who had immigrated to Australia–the company established a strong export business to Australia, with John handling sales. This export business grew to include other ports within the British Empire as well as the huge ceramics market in the United States where majolica was in high demand. A large export market guaranteed the company’s success where the others had failed.

Most of their designs had a strong Asian influence. One of the company’s earliest registered majolica designs is Fan, shown below. 

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan pitcher

Numerous fan shaped designs were created to coordinate with this pitcher the best known of which is the Fan ice cream series. Heavily copied in the United States, the Shorter & Boulton pieces are usually difficult to distinguish from the American copies.

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan ice cream set

Shorter & Boulton designed ice cream server

Shorter & Boulton designed majolica Fan butter pat.

Shorter & Boulton designed majolica dessert dish

Shorter & Boulton Fan ice cream dish

Shorter & Boulton Fan ice cream dish reverse 

showing the English Registration mark.for March 17, 1881

There is also tea ware, dessert wares and decorative items of all kinds with the fan theme.

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan tea kettle

Shorter & Boulton Fan sugar with plain ground

Shorter & Boulton Fan cream pitcher with sharkskin ground

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan smoke stand with mug

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan humidor

Shorter & Boulton Fan cigarette holder

Shorter & Boulton majolica mustache cup & saucer

Shorter & Boulton majolica registered design

The Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan dessert plate 

was another registered design.

Shorter & Boulton majolica syrup based on a Copeland design

There are other Shorter & Boulton decorative items with the same distinctive patterned grounds.

Shorter & Boulton majolica pitcher

Shorter & Boulton majolica tea kettle

Shorter & Boulton majolica Fan basket

This pebbled ground was referred to as sharkskin 

in company nomenclature

Many well known designs are also known to have been produced by Shorter & Boulton or have been attributed to them.

Shorter & Boulton majolica Violet pitcher

English Registration photo for Shorter & Boulton's Violet jug

Base of a Shorter & Boulton Violet jug

Shorter & Boulton Dragon pitcher. Later issued by Newport Pottery’s  

Clarice Cliff as part of the Delicia and Bizarre series’

Usually attributed to the Eureka Pottery of Trenton, N.J.,

 the design of this series of owl and fan majolica is 

believed to have originated at Shorter & Boulton

Shorter & Boulton designed majolica plate

Shorter & Boulton majolica dessert stand

Shorter & Boulton Blossoms majolica pitcher

Shorter & Boulton majolica Strawberry and Bow tea tray

Shorter & Boulton majolica Strawberry and Bow plate

Shorter & Boulton majolica Strawberry and Bow tea kettle

Shorter & Boulton majolica Strawberry and Bow teapot

Shorter & Boulton majolica strawberry basket

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic plate. 

This pattern is often erroneously attributed to James Carr

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic butter dish

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic cup & saucer

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic mustache cup

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic tea kettle

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic sugar and creamer

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic platter

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic tea tray

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic cake dish

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic cuspidor

Shorter & Boulton majolica Atlantic jug. 

Later issued as the Oceanic jug by Wilkinson.and in the 

Bizarre and Delecia lines by Clarice Cliff

Shorter & Boulton majolica alternate Atlantic jug

Shorter & Son Bramble pitcher, a copy of a Wedgwood design

Shorter & Boulton majolica wild rose rustic pitcher

Shorter & Boulton cockatoo majolica pitcher

Shorter & Boulton Aesthetic majolica pitcher, copied by both 

the Arsenal pottery and Eureka pottery of New Jersey

Shorter & Boulton nesting bird pitcher copied by the Arsenal Pottery. 

Notice the similarity to shape to the Rustic Floral pitcher below

Shorter & Boulton Rustic Floral majolica pitcher

Shorter & Boulton Jonquil majolica tea set

1880 Shorter & Boulton advertisement in the Pottery Gazette 

In 1891 Henrietta Wilkinson's brother Arthur died from a fall, leaving the A.J. Wilkinson pottery without management. Arthur Shorter left Shorter & Boulton to helm the A.J. Wilkinson pottery and the reins of management at Shorter & Boulton fell to James Boulton. 

A.J. Wilkinson Ltd.

Wilkinson’s pottery specialized in white granite ware as well as other earthenware. In 1894, Shorter purchased the Wilkinson pottery and with the retirement three years later of James Boulton, combined ownership of the two firms. The two companies shared production and molds though management continued separate with James' son William assuming duties at Shorter & Boulton and Shorter's sons Collie and Guy at Wilkinson's.

Advertisement for Wilkinson that shows Shorter management 

In 1906 William Boulton left the firm and the name of the firm of Shorter & Boulton was changed to Shorter & Son. The company continued producing large quantities of majolica under the Shorter & Son name. Arthur Shorter retired in 1918 leaving the management of the two potteries to his sons. In 1920 the brothers expanded the pottery with the purchase of the Newport Pottery, which was later to become the headquarters of Clarice Cliff ceramics. 

Around this time the customer interest in majolica had diminished so the Shorters lessened its production in favor of more contemporary wares. Majolica still, however, continued to be part of Shorter & Son’s output. The majolica production at Shorter had a long run, beginning in 1879 and continuing through the beginning of WW2. 

Shorter & Son majolica Atlantic pitcher

Shorter & Son majolica Dragon pitcher

Shorter & Son Dragon pitcher c.1930

Shorter & Son corn pitcher, a copy of an Adams & Bromley pattern

Shorter & Son majolica monkey jug

Shorter & Son majolica crane pitcher

Shorter & Son Bramble majolica pitcher

Shorter & Son Blossoms jug

Shorter & Son majolica style Rustic Floral jug

Shorter & Som majolica Blackberry pitcher

Shorter & Son Floral Tree Trunk majolica jug

Clarice Cliff Shorter

Clarice Cliff began her career as a decorator at Wilkinson.  She caught the eye of the married Collie Shorter with whom she had an affair. Her interest in contemporary decoration incentivized Shorter to set her up at her own business at the newly purchased Newport Pottery. She exerted considerable influence over the lines produced at the three Shorter owned potteries. In 1939 Collie’s first wife Annie died. Clarice married Collie Shorter the following year. 

She went on to use some of the Shorter & Boulton molds in her lines as well as create her own shapes. Below are Wilkinson/Newport jugs issued under the Clarice Cliff name using Shorter & Boulton molds.

Clarice Cliff Oceanic jug based on the 

Shorter & Boulton’s jug mold

Wilkinson Clarice Cliff Delicia jug based on the 

Shorter & Boulton Atlantic jug mold

Newport Clarice Cliff Bizarre jug on the 

Shorter & Boulton Atlantic shape

Newport Clarice Cliff Bizarre Nasturtium jug on the 

Shorter & Boulton Atlantic shape

Newport Clarice Cliff Bizarre jug based 

on the Shorter & Boulton Dragon shape

Clarice Cliff Delicia jug based on the 

Shorter & Boulton Dragon shape

As mentioned earlier Shorter & Boulton marked almost none of their production. Reverses are often glazed in a washed grey glaze. Impressed diamond marks appear on the few designs submitted to the English Registration office. 

English Registration mark for March 17, 1881 on the reverse of a Shorter & Boulton Fan plate

After the name change to Shorter & Son in 1906 they usually marked their wares using ink marks and occasionally molded marks. It’s from this later production that we have much of the information regarding Shorter & Boulton's output. Reverses on these later pieces are usually glazed in ivory.

Shorter England mark c.1900

Shorter & Son mark 1906-1933

Shorter & Son LTD. mark post 1933

Shorter & Son LTD mark post 1933

Shorter became known for producing reasonably priced majolica. Some Shorter & Boulton majolica molds continued to be used at the Shorter, Newport and Wilkinson potteries through the remaining history of the potteries using non majolica glazes.

The company continued in operation until 1963 when it merged with Fieldings. Production was then absorbed by the Crown Devon pottery. That pottery finally closed in 1974.