North Devon Pottery and Its Export to America in the 17th Century Part 1

North Devon Pottery and Its Export to America in the 17th Century.

by C. Malcolm Watkins.

_Recent excavations of ceramics at historic sites such as Jamestown and Plymouth indicate that the seaboard colonists of the 17th century enjoyed a higher degree of comfort and more esthetic furnis.h.i.+ngs than heretofore believed. In addition, these findings have given us much new information about the interplay of trade and culture between the colonists and their mother country._

_This article represents the first work in the author's long-range study of ceramics used by the English colonists in America._

THE AUTHOR: _C. Malcolm Watkins is curator of cultural history, United States National Museum, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution._

Pottery sherds found archeologically in colonial sites serve a multiple purpose. They help to date the sites; they reflect cultural and economic levels in the areas of their use; and they throw light on manufacture, trade, and distribution.

Satisfying instances of these uses were revealed with the discovery in 1935 of two distinct but unidentified pottery types in the excavations conducted by the National Park Service at Jamestown, Virginia, and later elsewhere along the eastern seaboard. One type was an elaborate and striking yellow sgraffito ware, the other a coa.r.s.e utilitarian kitchen ware whose red paste was heavily tempered with a gross water-worn gravel or "grit." Included in the latter cla.s.s were the components of large earthen baking ovens. Among the literally hundreds of thousands of sherds uncovered at Jamestown between 1935 and 1956, these types occurred with relatively high incidence. For a long time no relations.h.i.+p between them was noted, yet their histories have proved to be of one fabric, reflecting the activities of a 17th-century English potterymaking center of unsuspected magnitude.

The sgraffito pottery is a red earthenware, coated with a white slip through which designs have been incised. An amber lead glaze imparts a golden yellow to the slip-covered portions and a brownish amber to the exposed red paste. The gravel-tempered ware is made of a similar red-burning clay and is remarkable for its lack of refinement, for the pebbly texture caused by protruding bits of gravel, and for the crude and careless manner in which the heavy amber glaze was applied to interior surfaces. Once seen, it is instantly recognizable and entirely distinct from other known types of English or continental pottery. A complete oven (fig. 10), now restored at Jamestown, is of similar paste and quality of temper. It has a roughly oval beehive shape with a trapezoidal framed opening in which a pottery door fits snugly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 2.--Sketch of sherd of sgraffito-ware dish, dating about 1670, that was found during excavations of C. H. Brannam's pottery in Barnstaple. (_Sketch by Mrs. Constance Christian, from photo._)]

Following the initial discoveries at Jamestown there was considerable speculation about these two types. Worth Bailey, then museum technician at Jamestown, was the first to recognize the source of the sgraffito ware as "Devons.h.i.+re."[1] Henry Chandlee Forman, a.s.serting that such ware was "undoubtedly made in England," felt that it "derives its inspiration from Majolica ware ... especially that of the early Renaissance period from Faenza."[2]

Bailey also noted that the oven and the gravel-tempered utensils were made of identical clay and temper. However, in an attempt to prove that earthenware was produced locally, he a.s.sumed, perhaps because of their crudeness, that the utensils were made at Jamestown. This led him to conjecture that the oven, having similar ceramic qualities, was also a local product. He felt in support of this that it was doubtful "so fragile an object could have survived a perilous sea voyage."[3]

Since these opinions were expressed, much further archeological work in colonial sites has revealed widespread distribution of the two types.

Bailey himself noted that a pottery oven is intact and in place in the John Bowne House in Flus.h.i.+ng, Long Island. A fragment of another pottery oven recently has been identified among the artifacts excavated by Sidney Strickland from the site of the John Howland House, near Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts; and gravel-tempered utensil sherds have occurred in many sites. The sgraffito ware has been unearthed in Virginia, Maryland, and Ma.s.sachusetts.

Such a wide distribution of either type implies a productive European source for each, rather than a local American kiln in a struggling colonial settlement like Jamestown. Bailey's attribution of the sgraffito ware to Devons.h.i.+re was confirmed in 1950 when J. C. Harrington, archeologist of the National Park Service, came upon certain evidence at Barnstaple in North Devon, England. This evidence was found in the form of sherds exhibited in a display window of C. H. Brannam's Barnstaple Pottery that were uncovered during excavation work on the premises. These are unmistakably related in technique and design to the American examples. A label under a fragment of a large deep dish (fig. 2) in the display is inscribed: "Piece of dish found in site of pottery. In sgraffiato. About 1670." This clue opened the way to the investigation pursued here, the results of which relate the sgraffito ware, the gravel-tempered ware, and the ovens to the North Devon towns and to a busy commerce in earthenware between Barnstaple, Bideford, and the New World.

This study, conducted at first hand only on the American side of the Atlantic, is admittedly incomplete. Later, it is planned to consider sherd collections in England, comparative types of sgraffito wares, and possible influences and sources of techniques and designs. For the present, it is felt the immediate evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusions drawn here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 3.--Map of the area around Bideford and Barnstaple.

Reproduced from J. B. Gribble, _Memorials of Barnstaple_, 1830.]

The author is under special obligation to J. C. Harrington, chief of interpretation, Region I, National Park Service, who discovered the North Devon wares and whose warm encouragement led to this paper. Also, the author is greatly indebted to the following for their help and cooperation: E. Stanley Abbott, superintendent, J. Paul Hudson, curator, and Charles Hatch, chief of interpretation, Colonial National Historical Park; Worth Bailey, Historic American Buildings Survey; Robert A. Elder, Jr., a.s.sistant curator, division of ethnology, U.S. National Museum; Miss Margaret Franklin of London; Henry Hornblower II and Charles Strickland of Plimoth Plantation, Inc.; Ivor Noel Hume, chief archeologist, Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.; Miss Mildred E. Jenkinson, librarian and curator, Borough of Bideford Library and Museum; Frederick H. Norton, professor of ceramics, Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology; and Mrs. Edwin M. Snell of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Historical Background

Barnstaple and its neighbor Bideford are today quiet market centers and summer resorts. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, by contrast, they were deeply involved in trade with America and with the whole West of England interest in colonial settlement. Bideford was the home of Sir Richard Grenville, who, with Sir Walter Raleigh, was one of the first explorers of Virginia. As the leading citizen of Bideford, Grenville obtained from Queen Elizabeth a modern charter of incorporation for the town. Consequently, according to the town's 18th-century chronicler, "Bideford rose so rapidly as to become a port of importance at the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign ... when the trade began to open between England and America in the reign of King James the First, Bideford early took a part in it."[4] Its orientation for a lengthy period was towards America, and the welfare of its inhabitants was therefore largely dependent upon commerce with the colonies.

In common with other West of England ports, Barnstaple and Bideford engaged heavily in the Newfoundland fis.h.i.+ng trade. However, "the princ.i.p.al part of foreign commerce that Bideford was ever engaged in, was to Maryland and Virginia for tobacco.... Its connections with New England were also very considerable."[5]

During the first half of the 18th century Bideford's imports of tobacco were second only to London's, but the wars with France caused a decline about the year 1760.[6] Barnstaple, situated farther up the River Taw, followed the pattern of Bideford in the rise and decline as well as the nature of its trade. Although rivals, both towns functioned in effect as a single port; Barnstaple and Bideford s.h.i.+ps sailed from each other's wharves and occasionally the two ports were listed together in the Port Books. As early as 1620 seven s.h.i.+ps, some of Bideford and some of Barnstaple registry, sailed from Barnstaple for America,[7] but the height of trade between North Devon and the colonies occurred after the Restoration and lasted until the early part of the 18th century. In 1666, for example, the _Samuel_ of Bideford and the _Philip_ of Barnstaple sailed for Virginia, despite the dangers of Dutch warfare.[8] The following year, on August 13, 1667, it was reported that 20 s.h.i.+ps of the Virginia fleet, "bound to Bideford, Barnstaple, and Bristol have pa.s.sed into the Severn in order to escape Dutch men-of-war."[9] Later, in 1705, we find that the _Susanna_ of Barnstaple, as well as the _Victory_, _Zunt_, _Devons.h.i.+re_, _Laurell_, _Blackstone_, and _Mary and Hannah_, all of Bideford, were anch.o.r.ed in Hampton Roads off Kecoughtan. They comprised one-ninth of a fleet of 63 s.h.i.+ps from various English ports.[10]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 4.--Old pottery in Torrington Lane (formerly Potter's Lane), East-the-Water section of Bideford. The photo was taken in 1920, just before the buildings were razed. (_Courtesy of Miss M. E.

Jenkinson._)]

Aside from such indications of a well-established mercantile trade, the entrenchment of North Devon interests in the colonies is repeatedly shown in other ways. Before 1645, Thomas Fowle, a Boston merchant, was doing business with his brother-in-law, Vincent Potter, who lived in Barnstaple.[11] In 1669, John Selden, a Barnstaple merchant, died after consigning a s.h.i.+pment of goods to William Burke, a merchant of Chuckatuck, Virginia. John's widow and administratrix, Sisely Selden, brought suit to recover these goods, which were "left to the sd. W{m} Burke, &c, for the use of my late husband."[12] Burke was evidently an agent, or factor, who acted in Virginia on Selden's behalf. In Northampton County, alone, there resided six Bideford factors, remarkable when one considers the isolated location of this Virginia Eastern Sh.o.r.e county and the spa.r.s.eness of its population in the 17th century.[13] John Watkins, the Bideford historian, adds further evidence of mercantile involvement with the colonies, stating of Bideford that "some of its chief merchants had very extensive possessions in Virginia and Maryland."[14] Both in New England and the southern colonies, local merchants acted as resident agents for merchants based in the mother country. Often tied to the latter by bonds of family relations.h.i.+p, the factors arranged the exchange of American raw materials for the manufactured goods in which their English counterparts specialized.

That there was a large and important commerce in North Devon earthenware to account for many of the relations.h.i.+ps between Bideford, Barnstaple, and the colonies seems to have remained unnoticed. Indeed, the fact that the two towns comprised an important center of earthenware manufacture and export in the 17th century has. .h.i.therto received little attention from ceramic historians, and then merely as sources of picturesque folk pottery. Yet in the excavations of colonial sites and in the British Public Records Office are indications that the North Devon potters, for a time at least, rivaled those of Staffords.h.i.+re.

The earliest record of North Devon pottery reaching America occurs in the Port Book entry for Barnstaple in 1635, when the _Truelove_, Vivian Limbry, master, sailed on March 4 for New England with "40 doz.

earthenware," consigned to John Boole, merchant.[15] The following year the same s.h.i.+p sailed for New England with a similar amount. After the Stuart restoration larger s.h.i.+pments of earthenware are recorded, as ill.u.s.trated by sample listings (below) chosen from Port Books in the British Public Records Office.

TYPICAL s.h.i.+PMENTS OF EARTHENWARE FROM NORTH DEVON

(Sample entries from Port Books, verbatim)

BARNSTAPLE 1665[16]

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Date s.h.i.+p Master For In Cargo Subsidy --------------------------------------------------------------------- s d

26 Aug Exchange of W{m} t.i.therly New England 150 doz. of 7-6 1665 Biddeford Earthenware

4 Sept Philipp of Edmond Virginia 30 doz. of 1-6 1665 Biddeford p.r.i.c.kard Earthenware

28 Nov Providence Nicholas Virginia 20 doz. of 1-0 1665 of Taylor Earthenware Barnstaple ---------------------------------------------------------------------

BARNSTAPLE AND BIDEFORD, 1680[17]

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Date s.h.i.+p Master s.h.i.+pment --------------------------------------------------------------------- Aug 6{th} Forester of Christopher Browning Twenty dozen of 1680 Barnstaple, Earthenware for Maryland Subsidy 1/

Sept 6 Loyalty of Philip Greenslade 30 dozen Earthenware Barnstaple Andrew Hopkins, merchant Subsidy 1/6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

BARNSTAPLE, 1681[18]

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date s.h.i.+p Master To Goods & Merchants ----------------------------------------------------------------------- May 30 Seafare of Bartholomew New Forty-two hundred [weight]

1681 Bideford Shapton England parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 7/

28 June Hopewell of Peter Prust Virginia 30 cwt. parcells of Bideford Earthenware Peter Luxeron Merchant Subsidy 5/

Aug. 12 Beginning John Limbry Virginia 15 cwt. parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 2/6 Richard Corkhill Merchant[19]

BIDEFORD, 1681[20]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date s.h.i.+p Master To Goods ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 21 June Beginning Thomas Virginia Thirty hundred of Bideford Phillips pclls of Earthenware Joseph Conor merchant Subsidy 5/