Genealogy Chat

I think i may have found my 2xgrtgrandma in ST Mary Wareham Dorset, it seems she has left her husband back in Shelton S-O-T. The man she is living with is a potter from Tunstall S-O-T and there are other people from Stoke on the same page. Gill

What is it you want to know? Elaine

Hi Elaine, well was there a big pottery industry there? because there are quite a few people from S-O-T on the same page as the people i am looking at. Forgive me if iam wrong but iv never heard of dorset pottery. Gill

You haven't said when you found her, but if there are people whose occupation is potter in Dorset then obviously there was a pottery industry. I know that Poole, which isn't far from Wareham, is well-known for pottery. nell

Used to live near Wareham but can´t think of any well known potteries actually in Wareham, but there was a lot of small local potteries around. Also Poole pottery - but that´s probably too far away if you have found her on a Wareham census.

Poole Pottery has been around since c 1875. Corfe Castle area, very near Wareham, probably had a pottery industry as well, there are lots of Claymakers / claydiggers in this area. Sue

Thanks everybody i found her on the 1861 census. Gill

There's also Purbeck Pottery - don't know how old it is. Try a web search you might turn up others as well.

hi Gill, If you are looking for a modern pottery industry in the Poole - Wareham area you will not find one, except the famous Poole Pottery and that is very much geared towards a collectors' and luxury market. In the nineteenth century things were very different. Bournemouth was being built from scratch and Poole was expanding rapidly; market towns like Wareham and Blandford Forum were also growing apace. All the bricks and clay pipeware, tiles etc. were made along the Bournemouth / Poole / Wareham coast from brick-sand and clays left by river deposition from the period, up to about 9,000 years ago, when the Solent flowed along the coast and debouched into the English Channel near Lulworth Cove, rather than opposite the Isle of Wight at Southampton as it does now. The size of the industry brought in artisan expertise from other brick and pottery centres, like Stoke-on-Trent. There was a huge domestic pottery industry riding on the back of the urban development, but when the urban development and population expansion in this area slowed there was insufficient demand for housewares to support the whole industry and over a period of time it ground to a stop...J. (in Poole)