The Cole Potteries
As far as records go back, the Cole family was associated with potteries. Before the 1800s, potteries were quite simple affairs which often shifted from place to place as the owner worked out his small pocket of land. There is thus some uncertainty over the precise origins of the Cole Potteries. There are records of Daniel Cole establishing a pottery firm before 1806 at Tile Yard Road, Islington, and then moving to White Hart Lane, Tottenham, because the clay was running out. Yet there are also records of the Cole Potteries being started by his son John Cole at about the same time. John Cole was also connected with potteries at Highams Hill and, later, at Arkley, Hertfordshire.
When the Cole Potteries started up in White Hart Lane, Tottenham, the family took over half of the adjacent large house. Its name was Tentdale but it was generally referred to as the pottery house. As the extended family came into the business, additional houses in the vicinity were occupied by various family members and all of Tentdale became Cole's property. The family lived in one half and various 'car-men' (who drove the distribution carts) were given flats in the other half. Tentdale is where my mother spent much of her youth.
The first products that the Cole Potteries produced were hand-made bricks, tiles and pots. Later the main products were almost entirely plant pots for commercial use. In addition, garden ornaments and various other items were produced under contract. For example plaster figures which assumed a red tint, like terra-cotta, were fired in association with the red ware. Jewellers rouge was also burnt, but was discontinued because the fumes killed neighbouring trees. A number of gaunt dead trees were reported in the vicinity in the first couple of decades of the 1900s.
There are samples of Cole pottery at Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham where the inscription Tottenham Cole is clearly visible.
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In the 1870s the Cole Potteries were being run by John Cole's older sons but trade was bad and the business had to shut down for a year. Sankey of Nottingham had built a firm next door, had moved into the other half of Tentdale and was underselling Coles by 10%. E G Cole and my great grandfather James Reedman Cole, felt that they had to do something. So they gave up their current jobs and joined forces to run the Cole Potteries themselves. When they came to formalise their working relationship, James had a young family, whereas E G did not. So James wanted - and got - the security of a salary and on-site accommodation. E G agreed to take income only from the profits, which were presumably then only modest at best, and to live elsewhere. He thus acquired the formal ownership of what was at that time only of questionable value. However, the business went from strength to strength, and the arrangement was one that James had cause to live to regret. Sankey withdrew to Nottingham and the South family moved into the premises that Sankey vacated. At first Souths lived in half of Tentdale, but they later moved to another large house in the area and Coles took over the whole house, with James and his family living on-site in one half and various Cole employees living in the other half. The Coles and Souths Potteries traded very successfully side-by-side, but it is said that relations between them were not always cordial. Fortunately relations between their descendents are now excellent, and much of what we now know about the potteries is due to the generosity of a South's descendent. Potteries were large and self-sufficient enterprises which were major sources of local employment. Employees tended to stay for years. They were needed, for example, as: |
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