Myrna Schkolne: Early Staffordshire Figures

For decades, collectors have attributed a range of distinctive colored glaze figures to the potter Ralph Wood II.  Examples occur marked with Ralph Wood’s name, so similar unmarked examples were thus also readily attributed to Ralph Wood II.

But in 1991, Pat Halfpenny disputed this belief in her book on earthenware figures. Pat thought that :

• Ralph had functioned as the lesser-half of a partnership with his cousin Enoch between about 1783 and 1789. Marked Ralph Wood figures cannot be attributable to the partnership years.
• From 1790 -1795 (his year of death) Ralph made figures on his own and this is the earliest period we can assign to marked Ralph Wood figures.
• Similar unmarked figures were not made by Ralph, but were made by his brother John a ‘far more important potter’.

A collector, Wynne Hamilton-Foyn, has long been unhappy with this theory and has spent years meticulously researching and documenting Ralph Wood’s activities. He discovered that:

• Prior to  1782, Ralph Wood was a shopkeeper in Bristol...selling pottery, of course.
• By August 1782, Ralph Wood had returned to Burslem, was potting, and had over 50 figure molds he had made that he was using to fulfill orders. This is documented by an invoice in the Wedgwood archives.

Conclusion: Ralph Wood II was an active figure potter, working independently in Burslem from 1782.

Along the way, Wynne points out that

• We cannot attribute Ralph Wood figures to a lengthy partnership with Enoch Wood. This partnership did not endure for almost a decade, as Halfpenny believed, Instead it was brief. According to Enoch’s own diary “I began business for myself November 11th 1783 with a partner R. Wood for a few weeks only & dismiss [sic] him with all his things again.”
• We cannot attribute unmarked Ralph Wood type figures to John Wood. John was not even potting by August 1782—the date of the first documented, extensive  Ralph Wood invoice. When John got going in 1783, only a sliver of his wares were figures. These are described in invoices, are similar to Ralph’s wares, and appear to have been made by Ralph for John.

Wynne’s work is meticulous. He has filed copies of his paper with major museums in the UK so that this research will not be lost for all time. I am privileged to have received a copy from Wynne and it was the best reading I have enjoyed for ages. Riveting.  Researchers who take a wrong fork on the road—and it happens to us all-- are invaluable. Pat may have ultimately done us a favor by getting the Ralph thing wrong because this prompted Wynne to set the record straight and prove his case.

I am left with a few thoughts.

• If Ralph had molds for over 50 figures on his return to Burslem, surely he had used them in Bristol? Why would he have made mold after mold after mold….without making a single figure?
• Ralph Wood figure marks often incorporate the word ‘Burslem”. (Ra Wood Burslem). Some simply state R. WOOD. Is it possible that Ralph was potting figures in Bristol prior to his return to Burslem in early 1782? Could the simple R WOOD mark be a Bristol mark?
• While Ralph Wood is usually associated with colored glaze figures, there is a significant number of enamel figures that we also attribute to either Ralph Wood or his son, Ralph Wood III (d. 1801). There is no reason why some of these enamel figures could not date as early as 1782. After all, we know that Neale was making fabulous enamel figures in this period, so clearly the market existed.
  

If you have found this boring rather than fascinating, I cannot be apologetic for the blog entry. We need to take our figures seriously. They are not just pretty knick-knacks but are fascinating time capsules that tell us much of the world as it once was.

Above, we have Aurea Carter's Ralph Wood  "Vicar and Moses." Nice to have an impressed number 62 on this figure.  Ralph Wood figures often have impressed numbers in the bases. These are not thought to be mold numbers because, although the same number occurs repeatedly on the same figure form, you can also find identical figure forms with different mold numbers! A bit of a mystery. To see Ralph Wood’s fabulous elephants in both enamel and colored glazes, see the blog entry for Nov 08, 2009.