Ceramics and RJ Lloyd

Ceramics in Bideford and North Devon
Pots have been produced in North Devon since the Middle Ages, using the local clay found at Fremington. At one time thousands were made for use in local homes and farms and exported to parts of England, South Wales and to the American colonies.

The town of Bideford’s history is intimately bound up with the pottery industry. In the 17th century small ships voyaged to the New World with cargoes of pots, many examples of which can be found there today in museums. Due to the accessibility of clay and wood, potters made a good living in the Bideford area and many became wealthy trading merchants. Vast quantities of pots, crocks and ovens left Bideford Quay for the settler sites of Virginia and the ships were loaded back with tobacco.

Much of the pottery produced around Bideford was plain earthenware for cooking and storage.  North Devon is particularly well known for its harvest jugs.  These were made for celebrations, were covered with shapes and patterns from the natural world and might also be inscribed with poems or sayings.  This area is famous for two decorative techniques.  One is slip trailing, the use of slip or liquid white clay to dip pots or trail patterns on them.  The other is sgraffito, a technique for making shapes by scratching through a slip to reveal the clay underneath.

In 2007, with support from The Friends of the Burton, The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), The Art Fund and The Bideford Bridge Trust the Burton purchased the RJ Lloyd Collection , which comprises of some 535 pieces, collected by artist and Bideford resident, Mr RJ Lloyd. The new Ceramics Gallery at the Burton was opened in 2010.

What’s in the Ceramics Collection?
The Ceramics Collection at the Burton is a unique and significant collection of predominately North Devon slipware. It provides an ideal introduction to the history and heritage of ceramics in the area. Dating from the late 1600s to the 1970s, both everyday domestic ware and fine decorative pieces are included. Locally-produced ‘harvest jugs’ form an important part of the collection.

Image: The 1907 Fremington Team (The Fishleys at Fremington Pottery)

The RJL Collection is an interesting mix reflecting the collector’s growing fascination for the slipware pottery of England, and especially North Devon .The Collection contains over 500 pieces some of which are made by local craftsmen, including the Fishley family who had a pottery at Fremington.  More recent pieces include pots by Philip Leach, Michael Cardew, Clive Bowen and Harry Juniper, who still makes and decorates pots in the traditional way, selling from his shop by Bideford Quay.

RJ Lloyd started collecting North Devon Slipware in the early 1950s. He appreciated that, with so many potteries working in the area, it was part of North Devon’s industrial history. Many of the ceramics are things of beauty, with their honey-glossed glazes, engraved drawings and poems. From the 1740s harvest jugs bore drawings of tall ships in full sails, mermaids, stars, compasses and coats of arms. It also includes examples of jugs and domestic wares used daily before we had such mod cons as fridges and tap water. Some of the pots have weird and wonderful names, such as widebottoms, gulleymouths and pinchguts. Over the decades, the RJ Lloyd collection grew until it was acknowledged as rivalling many national institutions. Now it is open to the public, where it can be enjoyed by all. 

The RJ Lloyd Ceramics Collection: Artist as Collector - publication
A fully illustrated book on the RJ Lloyd ceramic collection, The RJ Lloyd Ceramics Collection: Artist as Collector, is published by the Burton to accompany the new permanent display. The book includes a contextual essay on the place of ceramic collections in museums by the internationally renowned potter Alison Britton and an introductory essay by Professor Simon Olding. At the heart of the book is a conversation between RJ Lloyd and the Burton’s Exhibitions and Collections Officer Warren Collum. This dialogue traces RJ Lloyd's growing fascination for the slipware pottery of England, and especially North Devon, from rare early pieces through to work made by renowned craft potters such as Michael Cardew and Clive Bowen. The once thriving pottery trade of North Devon is captured in this extensive collection, which celebrates the ordinary and the extraordinary through work of honest conviction, lively drawing and commemorative inscriptions.

The book is published in association with the Crafts Study Centre, and can be purchased via the Burton shop for £6.99 plus £2 postage and packaging if required. Please contact the Burton to discuss.

Information for Schools, College and Groups - Ceramics Loans Collection
Available for loan to schools, art clubs and other groups of learners, The Burton’s  Ceramics Handling Collection includes examples of North Devon slipware, traditional sgraffito samples and even ancient North Devon pottery and Roman ceramics. An accompanying DVD introduces the collection with some fascinating archive film showing how a harvest jug is made.

The loans collection can be booked for periods of 3 - 6 weeks. Please contact the Burton to discuss availability.

Further Information
At present over half of the RJ Lloyd collection is on permanent display. You can use the search facility at the top right of this website to research and view the whole collection, including items currently in store. 

If you would like to view specific items from the collection that are not  permanently displayed and are in storage, please contact the Exhibition and Collections Officer - Warren Collum to arrange an appointment.
 

The Permanent Collection

Housed within the Burtons Collections are a number of noteworthy artefacts, in addition we also have a number of highly significant paintings, many of which are directly related or connected to the local area. Selected works from the Permanent Collection are displayed annually and those visitors undertaking research are welcome to view particular works by appointment at other times.

Hubert Coop, the co-founder of the Burton Art Gallery and Museum, began the gallery’s collection of oils and watercolours. He was a fine artist himself and collected works by other painters of his own era, such as E. Aubrey Hunt, Sir George Clausen RA, Arthur Friedenson, Sir John Lavery, Sir Alfred Munnings, and John Littlejohns. Since the opening of the gallery in 1951, the collection has increased with purchases by the Friends of the Gallery and gifts from the public, and now contains works by some of the local artists who have exhibited here in the past.

To date The Permanent Collection includes works by;

Sir John Lavery (1856-1941, born in Belfast, and studied at Glasgow and subsequently in Paris, where he was influenced by Whistler and the Impressionists. He was a member of the Glasgow school before settling in London in 1895. Lavery had an immensely successful career as a fashionable portrait artist.

E. Aubrey Hunt, born in Weymouth Massachusetts U.S.A. in 1856, Hunt travelled widely in France and North Africa, and died in England in 1922. Hunt was a friend of Hubert Coop. His portrait by Sir John Lavery was given to Hubert Coop by Hunt’s wife, saying
‘Would you like to have this portrait of Aubrey by Lavery? Having him looking like a missionary that never made a convert, just won’t do!’

Sir George Clausen R.A was an English painter of Danish parentage. In the late 1870’s he visited Holland and Paris, where he came under the influence of Bastien-Lepage. Later he reverted to the habit of composing in the studio from open-air studies and developed a modified Impressionist technique.

Sheila Hutchinson
Hutchinson was born in Weare Gifford in 1906, and moved to Bideford with her parents as a child. She studied at Bideford School of Art, and in London, where she earned her living as a calligrapher. She returned to Bideford in 1939 and worked as a freelance calligrapher. Hutchinson’s work can be seen in rolls of honour in churches, civic offices, town halls and schools all over the country. She is best remembered for her watercolour paintings of North Devon, particularly an entire record of all the bridges and the landscape of the River Torridge, from its source to the sea. These paintings, 74 in all, were first shown in the Bideford Art School in 1951 for the festival of Britain celebrations, and are now housed in the Burton Art Gallery and Museum. The gallery is fortunate to possess a fine collection of her other watercolours and calligraphy. Sheila Hutchinson went to school with Mary Burton in whose memory her father, Thomas Burton, built the gallery in 1951. Sheila died in 1999 aged 92.

The Permanent Collection also includes a large selection of works by Hubert Coop RBA. Born at Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1873, the son of the Rev. Thomas Coop, Hubert Coop was educated at Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists at the age of 22. His paintings both in oil and watercolour, tend to fall into two groups: those painted quickly out of doors, and those painted in the studio in more detail.

Hubert Coop came to Bideford in the late 1920’s and stayed ‘because he enjoyed the subjects he found on the estuary, the river valleys and the neighbourhood, and his paintings inevitably captured the clear beauty and colour he saw there.’ (Bideford Gazette 1953). He had exhibited at the Royal Academy, Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester. In Bideford he helped to promote the development of the visual arts, and became Vice - President of what is now the Westward Ho! and Bideford Art Society.

Bideford’s Heritage

As part of the Collection, the Burton hosts artefacts relating to Bideford’s heritage, many of which came from the original Bideford Museum. These items illustrate local personalities from Bideford’s past such as Sir Richard Grenville, Edward Capern the postman poet, John Strange, who assisted plague victims in 1646 when the others had fled, the last Witches to be executed in England, and the first Red Indian to land on English shores. Artefacts include examples of North Devon slipware, the original Town Charter sealed by Elizabeth 1 in1583, a scale model of Bideford’s ancient Long Bridge in all its stages from 1280 to the present day, in addition local trades, such as a lime-burning, saddlery, glove and collar making are also illustrated.

Charles Kingsley wrote:

“Everyone who knows Bideford cannot but know Bideford Bridge for its very soul….. around which the town, as a body, has organised itself…”

The Long Bridge was begun c1280, when tradition has it that Bishop Quivel of Exeter was granted indulgences to raise the money for its cost. It was certainly there in 1327, when Bishop Stapleton left forty shillings to “the bridge of Bydeforde”. The original structure was wooden and there was a chapel at each end. In 1459, the Pope granted indulgences for the repair of the “Bridge at Bideford… there flows a very rapid and dangerous river, in which on account of the faulty structure of the said bridge, which is of wood, many persons have been drowned, and that on the said bridge there are two chapels, the one of St. Mary the Virgin and the other of All Saints, which are also in great need of repair”.

The museum has two items relating to Bideford’s famous bridge: the model of the Bridge at various stages of its development, constructed by Mr. Frank Whiting in 1945, for the Bridge Trust. Mr. Whiting, a notable architect, designed the original Burton Art Gallery. The Bridge Trust owned many properties in Bideford, the rent from these properties was used to maintain the bridge, which needed to be widened throughout history as local traffic increased from horse drawn to engine powered. The model shows the different building stages from the 13th century to the mind 20th century.

An oak beam from the original Bideford bridge was discovered during repairs to the later, stone bridge, and is displayed in the Museum. It has a mortice and tenon joint at one end, and a scarfe joint on the other, suggesting that it was a diagonal supporting timber.

Napoleonic Model Ships
Made by French Prisoners of War during the Napoleonic Wars, these ships are made of mutton bones riveted with copper wire onto a wooden hull. The bone would have been salvaged from their dustbins and worked with nails sharpened into little chisels. The rigging is made from threads drawn from their shirts.

These models were made by men who may have been craftsmen before joining the French Navy, often on a production line basis with one man making the planking and another doing the fine carving, probably with advice from the English on the technical details of the ships. These prisoners often had other talents, such as the ability to forge £5 notes, thousands of which found their way into Banks in Exeter and Plymouth.

The war with the French, which later became known as the Napoleonic Wars, broke out in 1793 and was fought almost continuously, until 1815. At the height of the war there were 8,000 Frenchmen in Dartmoor Prison alone (a prison built for the purpose of housing French Prisoners of War). In Bideford there was a prisoner of war camp, on the site of which was later to be the gas works, and their skeletons were discovered when the foundations were being laid.

Prisoners were supposed to be maintained by their own governments. Those who were poor, however, suffered acutely under this system, while those with private means managed to live fairly well. Some French officers were even allowed to live in lodgings out of confinement, where it was not unknown for them to marry local girls and settle down. At the other end of the spectrum there were prisoners who lived in nothing but blankets and fought like animals for scraps of food.

Calling Card Cases
In the 18th and 19th centuries, what was know as the ‘the gentry’ or better off people, never visited their friends or neighbours without first presenting a card with their name and address on. In order to keep these cards neatly, little cases were made to hold them securely. Some cases opened like a book, with a small pencil in the centrefold, an ivory notepad on one side, and a concertina like section to hold 5 or 6 cards. Other cases were oblong, hollow and had a flip top lid, while some opened from the side with a spring button or clip. The gallery collection consists of around 800 cases, donated by Mr McTaggart-Short, a businessman from Cardiff, who loved Bideford. Some cases are made of silver with embossed designs; others are of ivory and mother-of-pearl, wood or tortoiseshell.

Tea Caddies
These date from the 18th and 19th centuries, when tea was a rarity and very expensive. Tea was locked into these caddies, and only the lady of the house would possess a key. Some caddies are made of ivory with silver decoration, or tortoiseshell, both very exotic and fashionable in those days. Some have 2-lidded compartments for different varieties of tea, and are usually lined with zinc. Tea was served in little bowls without handles, and neither milk nor sugar was added. The drinking of tea in England was on a parallel to the Japanese tea ceremony, and was particularly popular with ladies. These must have been some of the very first ‘tea parties’ where they could meet and exchange gossip.

Clay Pipes
Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced tobacco to Britain in Elizabethan times, it was new and expensive, and smoking quickly became fashionable. The cost of tobacco meant only small quantities were smoked and the first clay pipes were very small, with short stems. Later on as more tobacco was imported into Britain and became cheaper to buy, pipe bowls were larger, and stems longer so that the hot smoke cooled down a little before reaching the smoker’s mouth.

Introduction

The gallery was built specifically to house the collections of Hubert Coop, which consists of watercolours, oil paintings and Napoleonic ship models. Important additions to the collections have since included the works of local artists Judith Ackland and Mary Stella Edwards, which were presented to the Gallery in 1971 on the death of the former. There are also collections deriving from the former Bideford Museum, which closed in 1978. Today the collections comprise of some 2,529 items including:-

Watercolour paintings by Hubert Coop (part of the Coop Collection), Judith Ackland and Mary Stella Edwards (the Ackland Edwards Collection), Sheila Hutchinson and other 19th and 20th century artists;

Oil paintings by E.Aubrey Hunt, Mark Fisher RA, Sir John Lavery RA, Sir George Clausen RA, Arthur Friedenson, William McTaggart (part of the Coop Collection) and other 18th, 19th and 20th century artists;

A collection of prints, drawings and photographs by A Braund, H.A Sandercock and others by various artists;

Ceramics. British and foreign ceramics. North Devon slipware from the 17th to the mid 20th century. Specifically work by the Fishley family of Fremington and Bideford Potteries, as well as the RJ Lloyd Collection;

Decorative arts. Model ships made by Napoleonic prisoners of war. Tea caddies, silverware, wine glasses. Pewter, snuff boxes. The Arthur McTaggart-Short collection of 816 visiting card cases. Furniture. Cotton wool figure (Jackanda) and other items;

Social History items including a model of Bideford Bridge, the town stocks and the Royal Charter. Images of local characters including the Postman Poet Edward Capern, Charles Kingsley and Sir Richard Grenville. Items from local industries such as glove and collar making, lime burning, the tobacco trade and saddlery. Many other similar objects;

Geological material. The Inkerman Rogers collection presently held at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter;

Coins. The Abbotsham hoard – a collection of 435 17th century coins discovered in 2001;

In 2007, with support from The Friends of the Burton, The Heritage Lottery Fund (HFL), The Art Fund and The Bridge Trust the Burton purchased the RJ Lloyd Collection , which comprises of some 335 pieces of predominantly West Country, and in particular North Devon, slipware pottery with sgraffito decoration, together with comparative pieces and related artefacts. Originally assembled by the acclaimed local artist and collector, RJ Lloyd, it includes ceramics dating from the 18th century to the present-day, both everyday and fine decorative pieces are included. Central to the collection are the locally produced ‘harvest jugs’ a traditional technique strongly linked to the local heritage. This exceptional collection is hugely significant to the local area and heritage as well as complimenting and expanding the Burton’s collections.