Boulton's Birds - Part Sixteen

NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD
Designed by Enoch Boulton

This is the sixteenth and final article in a series on bird patterns introduced by Enoch Boulton during his tenure as designer and decorating manager at the Carlton Works from 1921/22 to 1930.

Every Cloud has a Gold Lining

NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD elaborates on the newly fashioned HANDCRAFT pattern NEW CHINESE BIRD, which I focused on in the previous article No.15.
It was introduced at the same time and is yet another extravagant concoction incorporating the "cloud" motif originally devised for Enoch Boulton's earlier SWALLOW & CLOUD pattern from 1926.

Pictured below is the popular vase shape 406 decorated with NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD 3320. This first and striking variant of the pattern employs a WEDGWOOD BLUE ground with a MATT GLAZE and a BLACK cloud.

Out of the laboratory came beautiful colours

Generally, colours and glazes were bought in from one or more of the many colour makers that served the pottery industry. The development and production of glazes and colours was highly technical. The image below shows the laboratory of one such maker, Wengers. Small and medium-sized potteries did not have such resources and even the largest ones would also buy from these specialists. Emery was one manufacturer who supplied the Carlton Works; Blyth Colours was another.

Variants

Only three variants were recorded in Carlton Ware's pattern records.
The second, shown below, was assigned the consecutive pattern number 3321. As with its predecessor, it too was given a MATT GLAZE, this time over a CHOCOLATE ground with a BLUE cloud.

The third and last variant, pattern number 3322, uses a POWDER BLUE ground and an ORANGE lustre cloud. It is mostly decorated underglaze; the ORANGE lustre, by its nature, will be onglaze. Below, the exuberant pattern adorns a FOOTED FRUIT in a blaze of colour.

The stylised butterfly as seen on the bowl is only present on other shapes when space allows. The winged insect is not present on the OCTAGON CAKE tray with the CHOCOLATE ground shown above.

You can read about a probable source for Boulton's elaborate 'cloud' motif in my article on PARADISE BIRD & TREE with CLOUD .

Borders

NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD did not have a dedicated border, as many other patterns did. Instead, it used the bead devised for Horace Wain's MIKADO pattern, namely MIKADO BORDER BEAD; Wain preceded Boulton as designer and decorating manager, leaving the Pottery around 1921.

Carlton Ware used the term 'bead' to describe a narrow border, often forming part of a wider one. Barb has redrawn the bead for us below.

MIKADO BORDER BEAD

© Barbara Anne Lee 2023

A different border was often applied to the internal rims of vases. On the vase illustrated at the top of this page, Horace Wain's WHEEL BORDER is employed, as redrawn by Barb below. Read more about widely used, ubiquitous borders.

WHEEL BORDER

© Barbara Anne Lee 2023

To enlarge Barb's image of these borders and beads, click or tap on them.
Use your back button to return to this article.

Date of Introduction & Availability 

The three variants of NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD were introduced in 1929. We can only guess how long they remained available. They may have been offered for only two or three years; certainly they would have been discontinued by the latter part of the 1930s. As new patterns were introduced, older ones were dropped unless they were particularly popular with retailers, who tended to prefer offering customers something new each season. Hence the constant stream of new patterns from the Carlton Works.

I firmly believe that NEW CHINESE BIRD & CLOUD was Enoch Boulton's last bird pattern for Carlton Ware; he was soon to leave to work for Fielding's, makers of Crown Devon, doing so either in late 1929 or early 1930.

Background to Boulton's departure 

The information I provide below about Boulton's departure mostly stems directly from conversations and interviews I conducted during the 1980s with many former Carlton Ware employees who had worked at the Carlton Works during the 1920s and 30s, all now sadly departed. My writing on the extraordinary pottery they created is dedicated to them.

A year or two before Enoch Boulton left Copeland Street, Carlton Ware's long-standing salesman, George Barker, left the Carlton Works after a disagreement with Cuthbert Wiltshaw, the Pottery's owner.

Barker, a highly respected and successful sales manager, had been with Carlton Ware for many years. In 1918, it was he who identified Fred Wiltshaw's body after the Pottery's founder died from severe injuries sustained when he fell between a moving train and the platform at Stoke Railway Station. Barker stood in place of Cuthbert, Fred's eldest son, who was serving in the Royal Flying Corp/RAF during World War One and possibly on reconnaissance trips to France.

Barker left Copeland Street to work for Fielding's, makers of Crown Devon and one of Carlton Ware's competitors. Having worked with Boulton ever since the young designer joined Carlton Ware in 1921/22, Barker knew how talented he was and persuaded the now highly experienced designer and decorating manager to leave the Carlton Works for Fielding's. The offer of a higher salary was the main incentive. Enoch had recently married and therefore had new responsibilities, especially with a baby on the way.

As Carlton Ware's salesman for many years, Barker, as did Boulton, knew only too well which of the pottery's lines were good sellers, and so, for his new masters, Abraham and his son Alec Ross Fielding, Boulton replicated popular shapes he had devised at Copeland Street. In particular, the highly successful LETTUCE & TOMATO range, and some Best Ware shapes. He also introduced his new employer to some of Carlton Ware's closely guarded decorating techniques, notably the application of RUBY LUSTRE and POWDER BLUE grounds. As importantly for Fielding's sales, Barker knew all of Carlton Ware's customers, whom he had cultivated over years. Inevitably, he will have tried to persuade them to move from selling Carlton Ware to selling Crown Devon. Combined with Fielding's policy of undercutting on prices — within the Potteries, Crown Devon was sometimes called "poor man's Carlton Ware" — and the economic crisis triggered by the Wall Street Crash in 1929, there was a real threat to Carlton Ware's survival. This was compounded by Carlton Ware’s recent — and, with hindsight, untimely — expansion through the purchase of the China Works of Birks Rawlins in 1928. On top of all this, in a terrible moment of panic and in error, Carlton Ware's bank was soon to place the Pottery into receivership.

How on earth did Carlton Ware survive all of these colliding, adverse events? Enter Violet Elmer…