Thomas Minton

He founded Thomas Minton & Sons in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, which grew into a major ceramic manufacturing company with an international reputation.

[1] The engraver Thomas Lucas went from there to work for Josiah Spode at Stoke-on-Trent in 1783, taking some elements of the fashionable chinoiserie patterns with him.

[2] While at Caughley Thomas Minton is thought to have worked on chinoiserie landscape patterns including willows, and to have prepared copperplates of them:[3] but the Salopian works never produced the standard willow pattern which includes the bridge and the fence in the foreground.

In 1793 he established his own pottery factory in Stoke-upon-Trent principally for the manufacture of white-glazed earthen tablewares or pearlware including blue transfer printed and painted wares.

In 1824 he built a new factory for china, on the basis of which the company of 'Thomas Minton and Sons', known more simply as 'Mintons', was developed.