Edward and George Phillips ’ Pottery at Longport

Ceramics marked with the Phillips name are frequently found in estate auctions, antiques shops, and historical societies in New England. While transfer printed wares predominate, the firm produced a range of earthenwares, including flow blue, creamware, edged ware, painted pearlware, plain white ironstone, and luster. Printed pieces were often marked with a transfer containing the name of the pattern and the firm’s name. On other pieces, one of two impressed marks was used. Unlike several other potters whose wares are common in North America, the Phillips brothers produced few of the dark blue scenes now prized by collectors, and little has been written about their trade. The pottery was founded by two brothers, Edward and George Phillips, in 1822. Their father was a merchant in Newcastle under Lyme, and no one in the family seems to have had a pottery background. Edward, however, married Benedicta Wedgwood, who had become a ward of Josiah Wedgwood after the death of her father, Thomas, of the Overhouse Works. The brothers leased the New Bridge pottery in Longport, also known as the Bottom Bridge Works, from Joseph Brindley. The pottery had an excellent location on the Trent and Mersey Canal and had been vacant since 1817, when the previous tenants, Lindop and Taylor, went out of business. The Rogers and Davenport firms, known for extensive North American trade, were neighbors. Many of the buildings on the New Bridge site survived well into the 20th century, and the master potter’s house, occupied by George Phillips and his family until 1841, is now the Duke of Bridgewater Inn. The factory buildings which fronted on the road and the remaining bottle ovens were demolished in the mid twentieth Edward and George Phillips’ Pottery at Longport