Maling pottery

The family were Protestant Huguenots who fled their native land in the sixteenth century to escape the threat of religious persecution.

This speeded up the production process and led to huge orders from manufacturers of goods as diverse as marmalade, meat and fish pastes, ointments and printing ink.

[7] A Victorian visitor to the pottery records that he saw an estimated one million jars in storage, waiting to be shipped to a marmalade manufacturer.

By the 1920s Maling was producing over two hundred new designs a year in a successful attempt to meet the changing tastes of the British public.

[9] By the outbreak of war, the Maling family members who had been directly involved in running the pottery were deceased and the business was in the hands of trustees.

Maling survived by producing items for the armed forces, such as photographic developing trays for use on RAF reconnaissance missions.

Items ranged from simple kitchen wares such as pudding basins to highly gilded, lustred and enamelled pieces for display in fashionable homes.