A.J. Wilkinson

Wilkinson (Arthur J. Wilkinson, Royal Staffordshire Pottery) was a pottery or potbank at Newport in Burslem, owned by the Shorter family since 1894.

A sprawling complex of bottle ovens, kilns and production shops, it lay beside the Trent and Mersey Canal, the artery which provided it with coal and the raw materials for earthenware.

The pottery had formerly been operated in turn by Hopkin & Vernon, Hulme & Booth, Thomas Hulme, Burgess & Leigh, and Richard Alcock, who enlarged the works extensively.

The works at first produced earthenware for the home market, but later operations concentrated on white graniteware for the United States.

[1] The pottery was managed by Colley Shorter, an affluent Victorian, and his brother Guy.