Doulton, SIR HENRY

Doulton, SIR HENRY, the head of the famous firm of Lambeth potters, was born at Lambeth, 24th July 1820, and on attaining his fifteenth year entered his father's establishment there, where he devoted himself to the most technical branch of the industry, and worked for many years at the potter's wheel. In 1846 he commenced the manufacture of stoneware pipes for sewage and drainage, for which a special factory was erected near Lambeth Palace, and thus initiated the substitution of impervious pipes for the old flat-bottomed brick drains, with their gaping joints; in 1848 drain-pipe works, now the largest in the world, were started at Rowley Regis, near Dudley, and at present from 25 to 30 miles of pipes are turned out weekly from the various Doulton works. Sir Henry Doulton, however, is chiefly noteworthy as having been mainly instrumental in bringing about the revival in art pottery which has since spread into every civilised country; and his firm's works in art stone-ware, silicon, impasto, terra-cotta, faience, and Doulton wares, have since 1870 excited the admiration of critics and gained the highest awards of judges at every exhibition of note throughout the world. He was created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1878), and was awarded the Albert Medal (q.v.) in 1885; and in 1887 he was knighted on the occasion of the Queen's jubilee. He died 17th November 1897. Besides a staff of over two hundred artists (many of them ladies) in the commodious studios (1882), nearly four thousand persons are employed by the firm in London, at the works in Staffordshire and Lancashire, and near Glasgow. See POTTERY.