Leeds Creamware

Pottery was one of the most important industries in Leeds during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The main works were established in Hunslet, south of the city centre, in 1770 and soon after became highly successful in manufacturing a white-bodied lead-glazed earthenware called creamware, or Queen's ware, made from West Country clays and ground local flint. It was an imitation of the wares made by potters in Staffordshire and elsewhere in Yorkshire. Whiter pottery with a bluish glaze called Pearlware was also developed, together with types of earthenware, including black ware, red ware and even porcelain.

In its heyday between 1770 and 1830, the Leeds Pottery produced enormous quantities of useful as well as ornamental objects for a world-wide market. A pattern book was published in 1783 and orders came in from Russia, Holland and France. Items could be left plain or could be decorated with enamels, with coloured slips or transfer printed in blue, black or sepia.

Leeds creamware is often difficult to distinguish from similar products made by other potteries, either is Staffordshire or elsewhere in Yorkshire, where there were several successful imitators. There are certain common features to all these factories such as decorative pierced borders, and 'feather' edges. Leeds pieces, which are sometimes impressed 'Leeds Pottery' or 'Hartley Greens and Co', often have entwined ribbed handles, leafy terminals and a certain convovulus (bindweed) flower finial. These were found in great numbers during an archaeological excavation of the factory site in the late 1970s.

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