A Working Idyll
V & A
Imagine a workplace that was designed to make you feel comfortable and contented, where you would be encouraged in your individual artistic expression and funded to do further research and study, and where the owners and managers fostered a sense of camaraderie by arranging music and entertainment events for the staff.
Well, those were the conditions enjoyed by Henry Doulton’s ’Lady Painters’: the women who worked at Doulton’s Lambeth pottery, designing and decorating ceramic vases, urns and tiles.
In a fascinating talk hosted by the Brixton Society Dr Jane Jordan explored the lives of some of the women working on the Lambeth Art Pottery line. Henry Doulton began employing women from the 1870s onwards, and by 1882 there were 229 women and girls producing Lambeth wares. Dr Jordan has been able to identify 200 of the women so far, but little further information is available for women who were not major artists.
John Doulton, Henry’s father, had originally set up the Lambeth works at the beginning of the 19th century to manufacture plumbing pipes and moulded architectural decorations, but in the 1860s the director of the prestigious Lambeth School of Art began lobbying the company to start producing decorative wares so as to provide employment for its students. Ottoman vases were proving popular with the public. So surely a homegrown range of similar items would sell well…
It turned out to be a highly successful partnership, providing rewarding lifetime careers for many women and enhancing the reputation of the School of Arts for developing applied fine art skills.
Many of the women who worked at the pottery came from middle class families who had fallen on hard times because of the death of the father. There were few employment options for the daughters of such families, but for any young woman who had had some tuition in painting and drawing, and a modicum of talent, ceramic decoration could be a lifeline.
This was certainly the case with Hannah Barlow, one of the most creative of Doulton’s painters. Both she and her sister Florence worked at the pottery, and much of the information that Dr Jordan has been able to find comes from Hannah’s written account of working for Doulton, whom she revered. What is even more remarkable about her is that after injuring her right hand, she was able to train her left hand to work just as effectively.
It’s from Hannah’s record that we learn how congenial the working conditions at Lambeth Art Pottery were. Henry Doulton created a domestic ambience even in an industrial setting by favouring small work studios for three or for people rather than open plan. The family atmosphere was often just that: the pottery works were known to have employed 26 pairs of sisters as well as cousins, brothers and mothers. Artistic collaborations flourished: the women often worked on pieces together, specialising in certain techniques, such as incising, or excelling in particular decorative motifs, be it flowers, foliage, animals or human figures. Doulton insisted that they sign their work, so that they could be confident that they were engaged in an ‘interesting and elevating occupation’. It is thanks to this that our Lady Painters have not disappeared from view completely.
Artistically, this approach paid off. Ada Dennis, for example, who later became an illustrator, won a Society of Arts award in 1889, and Lambeth art pottery was taking medals and prizes at exhibitions around the world.
The social soirées laid on by the company encouraged friendships and more. Several women ‘married up’, to white-collar men they had met through these occasions, being transported into – or rejoining – the middle class.
Despite his encouragement and support for his female workforce, Henry Doulton still believed that the ‘true sphere of woman is the family and household’, but how fortunate that he was prepared to overlook that. Hannah Barlow expressed the gratitude of all the women when she presented Doulton with two commemorative albums in 1882: one a photo album, and the other a beautifully illustrated album with images of the women at work and a record of their individual marks. These albums will be going on display at the Lambeth Archive next year – and I’ll be first in the queue to see them.