RARE - Lithgow Pottery - Judy Birmingham (editor) 1974

 Lithgow Pottery - Judy Birmingham (editor)

Three early catalogues from New South Wales

I have here an excellent reference softcover book, number 2 in the series Studies in Historical Archaeology, edited by Judy Birmingham, titled, ‘Lithgow Pottery’. Publishing by the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology in 1974 (First Edition).

INTRODUCTION:

‘Lithgow pottery’, the domestic wares produced by the Lithgow Valley Colliery Company’s Pottery Works at Lithgow in New South Wales, is the best-known and the most numerous survivor of the many small potteries that attempted local manufacture in Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The plainer forms of jar and bottle are still commonly found, and although the finer decorated pieces are rarely on the market there are good representative collections in Esk Bank House at Lithgow, in the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences at Sydney, as well as many in private ownership.

The production of this pottery began in 1876 when ‘terracotta wares’ are first mentioned as being made in addition to bricks and salt-glazed pipes. Coal mining in the Lithgow Valley expanded rapidly following the completion of the Great Zig-Zag section of the railway line in 1869 and by 1873 Lithgow Valley Colliery, which was to become the Lithgow Valley Colliery Company in 1877, had been well established. In the late ‘70s the company was making its own bricks and pipes, and the expansion of the domestic wares followed rapidly, aided by the expertise of the skilled potter from England, James Silcock. In 1879 articles from the pottery were exhibited at the International Exhibition in Sydney, and in 1881 the production of Bristol stone-glazed wares began, to be followed later, after experiment, by the appearance of Rockingham, Majolica and Cane wares.

Production continued into the ‘90s, when operations began to decline mainly because of the free trade policies of the colonial administration. The Lithgow Pottery was hard hit by competition from overseas manufacturers who were able to dump their surplus pottery in New South Wales. The pottery virtually closed down in 1896 and reopened for eighteen months in 1905, under Edward Brownfield, a member of a well-known Staffordshire family. In 1945 the company decided to concentrate on coal production and the brick and pipeworks section was sold off. The remains of the pottery works were sold including many cases of unglazed wares. The mining interests of the Lithgow Valley Colliery Co. are now carried on by Coalex Pty Ltd.

The three catalogues or price lists reproduced here, those of 1889, 1895 and c.1906, are the only ones known to have survived. An earlier one of 1885 is mentioned in the Minute Books of the Lithgow Valley Colliery Co. but cannot be traced. The 1889 and 1895 lists are both from the Lithgow Pottery and Brick­works of the Lithgow Valley Colliery Company; the smaller one of c.1906 is the Brickworks Price List only, signifying the continuing production of bricks, pipes, tiles, chimney pots, etc. The original layout has been preserved, except that the bird’s-eye view of the site, which was the frontispiece to both the 1889 and 1895 lists, is reproduced as a foldout at the end, along with the poor-quality but interesting uncaptioned views scattered through the catalogue of c.1906.

The (67-page) book interior is in good condition with cover rubbing and fading.

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