The Fulham Pottery was founded by John Dwight c1671 and occupied the same site until it was cleared for housing development in 1986. Up to then it had been London's oldest industrial company. Initially producing copies of German stonewares, a large variety of sprigged mugs and gorges (spherical shaped jugs) were manufactured together with experimental soft paste porcelain. Excavation of the site produced many fragments of sprigged wares from this early period but no more until the nineteenth century. Although many of the large eighteenth century hunting mugs were originally attributed to Fulham, they are now believed to come from Vauxhall and Bristol. It is likely that hunting jugs were not produced at Fulham until the first half of the nineteenth century.
The pottery remained under the control of descendants of John Dwight until the death of Charles White in 1859. When Charles Bailey purchased the Company in 1864 he described it as having “no machinery and Buildings ill contrived for the work”. He invested a lot of money in modernising the factory and transferred there the production of the Vauxhall Pottery which he bought in 1865. He went bankrupt in 1889 and the pottery was taken over by the Cheavin Filter Company. Manufacture in such a built up area became more and more difficult and stoneware production ceased in 1928.
1671-1703 | John Dwight | |
1703-1709 | Lydia Dwight | |
1709-1737 | Samuel Dwight | |
1737-1745? 1751? |
Margaret Dwight & Thomas Warland | |
1751-1769 | Lydia Dwight & William White I | |
1769-1829 | William White II | |
1829-1859 | Charles Edward White | |
1862-1864 | Mackintosh & Clements, Clements & Co | |
1864-1889 | Charles Bailey | |
1891-1940 | George Cheavin | |
1940-1969 | Winston Cheavin |