The Orrong Pottery and Journeyman Potters, Gregory Hill
Abstract:
The Orrong Pottery operated for just four years, from 1880 to 1884, in Melbourne’s eastern suburb of Prahran, and under several names. It produced bricks and sewer pipes, as well as employing several prominent, Staffordshire-trained journeyman potters to introduce a range of domestic pottery to compete with wares imported from Britain and with wares from local potteries. This article outlines the short history of the Orrong Pottery and explores the structure and economics ofthe pottery industry in the 19th century. While few of the Pottery’s products were marked, Greg Hill suggests that identifying ‘crossovers’, such as the distinctive moulds and glazes used by journeyman potters such as William Holford at several potteries, may allow us tentatively to attribute extant examples to these potteries.
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