Tile Heaven: Tiles by George Marsden

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The Marsden Tile Company

Excellent design and execution especially in majolica and stencilled slip, fine quality in ways most other manufacturers missed, rarely is an ordinary design from Marsden to be found. Made tiles for and sold blanks to several other companies including Wedgwood and Doulton.

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Marsden's Patent, aka 'Patent Impressed' Wedgwood tiles.

The patent refers to decoration impressed in to the clay, all these tiles have dusted shading in the background, this may be Marsden's Patent if the dust is impressed in to the clay during moulding however it is not immediately clear as it is possible that fine dust is spread on to the biscuit before application of the stencilled slip. In the white clay tiles shapes likely cardboard have been placed in to placed in the press to form impressed patterns in the tile body when the press was operated, the green glazed tile has fabric impressed, these are for sure Patent Impressed.

Stencilled Tiles That Are Not Patent Impressed

The green clay tiles below bear Patent Impressed verso but are not, they are simply stencilled. There arises the confusion but it was just that Wedgwood didn't pay for a back plate for green clay which didn't say Patent Impressed the same backplate was used for all green clay tiles including transfer prints. It is therefore understandable that the misconception that stencilled = Patent Impressed has arisen even though the record is contrary, lots of people look at tiles, few people look at books.
One can not criticise for looking at the legend verso and taking it that it applies to the pattern on the face however that the book was published in 1982 and the transcript of the patent and his application to Wedgwood not understood yet been referred to on several ocassions is unfathomable. I just got a copy of the book today (10th March 2010) and with just a page and a half of text in the chapter on tiles it was clear to see.

Stencilled slip tiles are often called Marsden's Patent because many by Wedgwood are found with Patent Impressed embossed verso and this has been understandably taken to describe the stencilled slip process. Marsden offered his patent to Wedgwood in 1880 and in 1881 production started with a specialist department being established the following year. This stencilled process however is not what the patent describes furthermore the slips are obviously applied rather than impressed, it would appear that the root cause of the misunderstanding is due to Wedgwood's buying in policy. A misreading of the patent not least by the author of the book in which the outline of the patent is transcribed along with a description of the process by Marsden himself has compounded the error.
It is believed that Wedgwood bought most if not all of their tile blanks from subcontractors and that blanks made from green clay came from different manufacturers to those from white clay. Green clay blanks being the most often used for Patent Impressed were all embossed with that legend however Wedgwood used such green clay banks for tiles decoration by other processes, ordinary stencilled slip such as this and also transfer prints. The result being that many stencilled slip tiles which do not use the patented process are found with Patent Impressed embossed when they aren't and they shouldn't. However transfer prints were also applied to patent tiles with clay dust impressed, these appear to be rare and careful inspection is required to be sure.

Wedgwood only had a specialist tile department from 1882 - 1888, if they made tiles it would be in this period. Tiles made from their reintroduction to the range of wares in 1875 until 1882 would likely have been decorated by Wedgwood on bought in blanks and this is apparently confirmed by the simple application of designs for tablewares on tiles. Tiles post 1888 were likely all manufactured and decorated by subcontractors with the possible exception of tinted prints where the tinting would probably have been done in the decorating department of the pottery. The primary contractor seems to have been Marsden with likely J H Barratt and perhaps Lea and Boulton as other suppliers. Webbs of Worcester may have supplied blanks prior to 1882. Wedgwood apparently shopped around as one would expect for such a large pottery company for whom tiles were a peripheral activity.

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The Pilkington Tile Company

Late entrants in to the victorian tile market commencing production in 1893 at a time of boom in mass tiling projects, many patterns by the noted designers Lewis Day, C F A Voysey and Walter Crane.

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