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Josiah Spode I was born in 1733 to a modest income family, and began apprenticing when he
was only seven years old at a pottery near his home in Staffordshire. The young Spode
worked for a brief period, from the time he was sixteen until the time he was twenty one,
for an innovative potter named Thomas Wheilden. After departing the Whieldon works in
1754, Spode worked for a number of other potters until he could finally establish his own
pottery works in 1767. By 1776, Spode owned his own pottery factory, and although the
original buildings have been replaced, the factory still operates from the same location today.
In 1784, Spode perfected the process of blue underglaze printing on white earthenware.
Although the Chinese had produced underglaze blue and white porcelains for centuries,
it was very expensive to transport those wares from China back to England or America,
so most people could not afford them. The new English blue and white pottery was much
less expensive, and it was so popular that it created a revolution in the pottery community.
The new wares replaced plain white pottery, pewter and wooden items in many, many households.
Soon many other potters followed Spode's lead and began to employ Spode's methods to create
their own underglaze blue and white patterns.
As if the introduction of blue and white underglaze pottery were not enough to guarantee
Josiah Spode's place in pottery history, late in his career Spode achieved an even greater
triumph. Dedicated to producing a whiter, stronger ware to compete with the great demand
for European porcelains, in 1797 Spode arrived at the formula for fine bone china.
(This formula has a percentage of calcium phosphate derived from ox bone.)
Josiah Spode I died very soon after he discovered his formula for bone china. He did not
live to see the huge impact that his discovery would have on the pottery industry and
consumers. The brilliant whiteness, strength, and delicate translucency make bone china
a favored china all over the world. Every English fine china producer today produces some
variation of the bone china formula that Spode originally created. According to the Spode
company's publications, it's formula has in excess of 50% calcium phosphate derived from
ox bone while the United Kingdom's legal definition maintains that these wares need only
contain 30%.
In addition to the high quality product and technical innovations that Spode is known for,
it's success and popularity has been greatly enhanced by a history of sharp marketing
decisions. Soon after Spode had full ownership of his pottery, he opened a salesroom in
London. This began the association with William Copeland, a banker and tea merchant,
who oversaw the London office. Josiah Spode's son, Josiah Spode II was sent to the London
office in 1778. Copeland was a good business, and sales man. From the London shop,
Copeland and the younger Spode could better monitor the current taste and demand of the
wealthy urban clientele. (Later, Copeland would become a partner, and eventually his
son, William Taylor Copeland, would become the sole owner the Spode pottery.)
The early marketing of Spode's wares in the United States accounts for much of the
company's success as well. Immediately after the revolutionary war, Spode was the
first pottery to recognize the vast sales potential in America. Spode hired sales
agents to work in the major American cities, and by the turn of the eighteenth century
the United States was it's largest customer and has remained so ever since.
Spode's current line of wares includes fine bone china, imperial dinnerware, imperial
earthenware, and fine stone dinnerware. Introduced in 1938, the well known Christmas
Tree pattern is the best selling Spode pattern of all time. It is said that the
pattern is what kept Spode in business during the years just after World War 2.
References
Spode The Fine English Dinnerware. 1940, Copeland and Thompson, Inc., New York.
Spode sales brochure. The Royal China & Porcelain Companies Inc.
Spode website. www.spode.co.uk
China and Glass in America 1880-1980. Veneble, Charles et al. 2000, Abrams, Inc., New York.
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