Mortlake Potteries

Two potteries operated in Mortlake, Sanders and Kishere. The earlier was that owned by John Sanders and run by his son William from 1745. On his death in 1758 the copyhold was bequeathed to William. William died in 1784 and his son John took over. From 1794 there was a series of lessees, Thomas Norriss, Pressick Dodd, William Wagstaff and finally John Wisker who, in 1823, transferred production to the Glasshouse Street, Vauxhall pottery originally established by John Sanders back in 1742.

The second Mortlake factory again had a Sanders connection. Benjamin Kishere had worked for John Sanders at Mortlake and possibly first at Vauxhall. His son Joseph was apprenticed to William Sanders but set up his own pottery about 1797. After his death in 1834, his son William took over. William died in 1843 and after a short-lived ownership by Thomas Abbott the pottery closed for good.

Mortlake Products

There is still great deal of uncertainty about what was made at Mortlake and by which pottery. A large proportion of the Sanders output may have been delftware, the only recorded marked pieces being pill tiles.

It seems to be convention to attribute all baluster shaped jugs to Mortlake and anything earlier than 1797 to Sanders. By similar logic any later, globular shaped, jugs become Kishere. While this may be correct it seems curious that the large, early, dated, tankards that have survived in quite large numbers are now mostly attributed to Vauxhall. As there is no known Sanders marked salt glaze we have to rely on hall marked silver fitments. These are only indicative as the silver mount could have been fitted much later to disguise rim damage or even transferred from an earlier and presumably broken piece. We can make a better attempt at attributing unsigned products of the Kishere factory by comparison with the significant number of signed examples.
 

An attempt to illustrate every known variant of Kishere signed work using hunting / drinking sprigs can be linked to by clicking on the button below.

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Not Mortlake

Nicholas Johnson is currently working on the successors to Sanders and attempting to follow the trail from Mortlake to Vauxhall. This will be extremely valuable as the 19th century Vauxhall production has been largely ignored because of the lack of signed pieces. There appear to be two Vauxhall potteries possibly operating up to the middle of the century. Watch this space!

It now seems likely that a series of finely sprigged mugs and jugs, attributed to Mortlake, might well be Scottish. Again watch this space!