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Bendigo Pottery history |
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George
Duncan Guthrie (born
1828), who would be
played by Sean Connery
if there were a movie,
was the indomitable
Glaswegian who, having
arrived penniless on
the South Australian
shore following a
shipwreck, tried his
luck in the
goldfields, failed to
find gold but
discovered instead a
deposit of fine white
clay, and then started
one of Australia’s
most illustrious
potteries in 1857 and
ran it, with
interruptions that
seemed necessary only
to demonstrate
everyone else’s
incompetence, almost
until his death in
1910. The late Jack Dehne, probably one of the best throwers Bendigo Pottery ever had, remembered Guthrie as a man who gained respect because of his continual demand for first class workmanship. He would march up to the thrower's wheel, pull out his rule and run it along the board of freshly thrown articles. If one was too small, or too tall, he would demolish the lot with a stroke of his walking stick and say dryly ‘Start again boy!’ Bendigo produced a wide range of domestic and industrial wares over its long history. A company letterhead from 1895 reads, “Manufacturers of Bristol, Stone, Cane, Rockingham, White, Majolica, Terra-Cotta, and Fancy Wares; also Drain Pipes, 3 to 24 inches Diameter.” |
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Strong, rugged brown
Rockingham-glazed jugs
and teapots for the home
were a standard
commodity for Australian
pottery manufacturers
during the late 19th and
early 20th century. The
half-gallon jug at left,
made from white clay and
twice-dipped in
Rockingham glaze (top
and bottom), with a
purple band where the
glaze is doubled, was
found in country
Victoria. (The brown
Rockingham colours come
from iron oxides, and
the blue-purple
overtones result from
manganese in the mix.)
Whether this speciman
was made at Bendigo
pottery is uncertain,
but it is repesentative
of the kind of domestic
pottery made there for
decades. |
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Below, a Bendigo Langley ware jug, and a price-list page from about 1933. Copies of Bendigo Langley ware, popular for its durable leadless glaze, were made by most major Australian potteries in the ’twenties and ’thirties.
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It was at Bendigo
in 1915 that the factory
foreman, Jack Gare,
developed from the local
clays a popular
red-brown line of
tableware known as
Langley ware. (A Langley
ware jug and a pricelist
are shown at left.) The
directors soon asked
Gare for a copy of his
glaze recipe. Scholes
writes: “Gare refused
to comply with the
directors’ request for
the recipe and
reluctantly the
directors dispensed with
his services.” It is
easy to imagine that the
occasion was more
colourful than is
admitted in Schole’s
account. Gare’s
successor in the glazing
department, named
Lederbak, further
improved Gare’s
leadless glaze, and
Langley ware continued
as Bendigo’s most
successful and widely
copied line for thirty
years. Jack Gare opened
his own pottery works at
Castlemain and
made Langley ware
to compete with Bendigo.
Later he took his
knowledge and glaze
formulas to Bennett’s
pottery in Adelaide. |
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Bendigo pottery workers, 1923. Note interesting fashion accessory (bottom row).
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