Let us now put the achievements of James, George and George Elliot Meakin into perspective by outlining recent developments at the Eagle and Eastwood factories.

  Some years before World War II the firm embarked upon a massive scheme of reconstruction at the Eagle factory. 

  The programme was characteristically bold, for it necessitated an almost complete abandonment of existing plant and the erection of new buildings, ovens and machines. It meant, in effect, a new factory capable of exploiting every new development in the technique of potting.

  Rebuilding began in earnest in 1936. Within two years the first biscuit tunnel oven had been completed and the first glost kiln was in operation by September, 1939. The war held up further progress for six years, during which time the firm operated under great difficulties, but by 1946 the rebuilding programme was once more in full swing.

  A second biscuit tunnel oven and another glost tunnel kiln were installed and the entire production of the Eagle factory was now fired by the continuous process.  

  One by one the old familiar bottle ovens—which had for so long decorated the skyline of North Staffordshire—were dismantled.

  In step with these developments were the reconstruction and electrification of the mill, the introduction of semi-automatic making-machines and an entirely new system of internal transport (by monorail, pipe-line, conveyor belt and self-propelled trucks), the erection of a large engineering department and the extension and modernisation of the research laboratories.

  The warehousing and stocking system is being completely reorganised, the old wooden pens ranged along the warehouse walls being superseded by steel pallet boxes which are moved about and stacked by means of Fork Lift Trucks.

  The programme of reconstruction is not yet completed and one is justified, perhaps, in asserting that it never will be; for the blueprints of further major operations are already in existence. No firm in the pottery industry can remain for long in the van of progress unless its plans are flexible and adaptable. In potting, as in so many walks of life, the price of success is eternal vigilance. 

  In terms of bricks and mortar there is very little left at the Eagle factory to remind the visitor of the days of James and George Meakin.

  A portion of the block of buildings near the lodge gates is outwardly as originally built and includes the stone with the date 1859 inscribed, denoting the year the brothers moved in from their premises in Market Street, Hanley. How long these relics will continue to resist the march of Neotechnics remains to be seen.

  At the Eastwood factory many improvements have taken place during recent years; warehouses and workshops have been rebuilt, a conveyor system installed, the engineering shop refitted, and equipment in general replaced by the most efficient available.

  Readers unacquainted with the routine processes of pottery manufacture may be interested in the following, based on an article (published in the magazine Pottery and Glass in 1948) describing the work of reconstruction at the Eagle factory:

"The Mill has recently been completely reorganised. Pan-grinding has been replaced by a system of electrically driven cylinders, each independently controlled.

"When the flint and china stone have been ground—in water—to the necessary fineness the liquid mix is run off from the cylinders into underground arks. From these it is pumped, as required, to the slip house where it is mixed with the other ingredients of the earthenware body—china clay and ball clay—to form slip. The slip is then pumped into filter presses which squeeze out the surplus water and convert the liquid into clay. After 'pugging', a process by which the material is kneaded into a plastic consistency, the clay is ready for the potter.

"Plates, cups and saucers, etc., are now being made on semi-automatic machines in the highly efficient potters' shop. The introduction of these ingenious machines has increased production considerably: working at top speed they are capable of an output of seven saucers or small pieces per minute, and five plates (seven- or eight-inch) per minute. The layout of the shop facilitates the movement of moulds between the makers and the drying stoves and of ware between the makers and the towers. The lighting system was specially designed to eliminate shadow.

Casting

  "Articles known to the trade as hollow-ware—that is, teapots, coverdishes, jugs and such items as hors d'œuvres dishes and sandwich trays—are made in the casting shop. 

"The surplus slip is then poured off..."

The manufacturing process involves the use of hollow plaster moulds fashioned (internally) to the shape of the vessel to be reproduced. Liquid clay is poured into the mould, which is assembled from sections, and allowed to stand for a specified time.  The plaster absorbs moisture from the slip and firm clay of the required thickness is deposited on the walls of the mould.  The surplus slip is then poured off and the clay is left to dry out to a condition suitable for handling.

Next, the mould is taken apart and the moulded article is extracted. After being trimmed, or 'fettled', and sponged the ware is ready for its first firing in the biscuit tunnel oven.

  "The slip is fed into the casting shop by means of a large overhead pipe: flexible distributary tubes with control taps run from the main pipe to the individual casting operatives. 

Firing

  "Biscuit firing takes about fifty hours in tunnel kilns as against seventy hours in the old intermittent ovens. The ware is placed in strong protective fireclay containers known as saggars which are loaded on to kiln trucks. These travel through the gas-fired ovens, the length of which is 330 feet, at a constant speed. In the central zone of maximum heat the firing temperature is 1,100^o Centigrade.

  "From the ovens the ware is conveyed to the biscuit warehouse where it is machine-brushed, sorted, stamped with the firm's name and trade mark, counted, placed in galvanised wire trays, loaded on the conveyor and transported to the dipping house for the glazing process.

  "The gas- or oil-fired glost kilns, each over two hundred feet long and accommodating forty-four trucks, are housed in a building of impressive proportions (see illustration, [below]). It is equipped with an ingenious conveyor system which enables the dippers, crankers and glost sorters to deal with the heavy output of ware without the laborious exertions of an earlier generation of potters.

  "The new glost warehouse and under-glaze decorating shop has a total floor space of about eighteen thousand square feet. Here the decorators work in teams and—with the assistance of the conveyor belts—achieve a very high output of printed ware. Some gilding and under-glaze banding operations are carried on in the same building. 

Printed ware is 'hardened-on' in a small gas-fired continuous kiln. On-glaze lithographing, handcraft and gilding, which account for a large proportion of the decorated output, are carried out in special departments adjacent to the electric tunnel kiln, which was built in 1928 and has been enlarged twice since.

  "Increased mechanisation at almost every stage of production has called for a complete overhaul of the engineering services. New workshops have been constructed to handle the heavy work of maintenance and the steady demand for new plant and fittings.

  "The duties of the enlarged research department cannot be appropriately defined here. They include such routine tasks as the sampling of milled products (checking for fineness and chemical content), the analysis of colours, glazes and bodies and the scientific surveillance of the ovens and kilns. This department, amongst other activities, is responsible for the development of J. and G. Meakin's coloured bodies—'Celeste' (blue), 'Rosa' (pink) and 'Sunflower' (golden yellow)".

"... about one million pieces a week"... 

  We have come a long way since 1851 when "J" and "G" joined their father, James Meakin, at the Cannon Street works. To-day the firm's factories have an output of about one million pieces a week, and of this quantity approximately eighty per cent. is exported. 

  Potting is, of course, one of Britain's most important export industries. Its value to the national exchequer is substantial in terms of currency earned (in recent years the equivalent of some £14 millions per annum), and the bulk of its trade is confined to markets from which Britain, in exchange, obtains her key imports of raw materials and foodstuffs.