Royal Doulton

The Origin of the Daulton Company can be traced back more than 200 years to the dawn of the English china trade. In 1815, the widow Martha Jones who had inherited a pottery in Lambeth, took John Doulton into partnership. John Watts, her foreman, was also taken into partnership and the firm became Jones, Watts and Doulton. The primary products of the original company were ceramic busts, figurines, canning jars and tableware. Influenced by the Industrial Revolution, Doulton placed equal emphasis on industrial applications for ceramic technology.

John Doulton's son, Henry, carried that tradition of the Lambeth pottery to its zenith. As early as 1827, Henry Doulton developed ceramic filters for removing bacteria from drinking water. Drawn from the Thames River, the drinking water was described in a pamphlet published in 1827 as Offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination and destructive to the health. In 1837, Queen Victoria recognized the present health dangers in her drinking water and commissioned Doulton to produce a water filter for the Royal household. Doulton created gravity fed stoneware filter that combined the technology of a ceramic filter with the artistry of hand crafted pottery.

In 1877, Doulton took over the Nile Street Burslem factory of Pinder Bourne, where tableware and art pottery were produced alongside industrial ceramics. By 1882, this branch of Doulton's operation was making bone china. During this same year, Henry Doulton acquired a small factory in the Midlands, motherland of the Staffordshire potteries and the home of the Doulton Drinking Water Purifier. By 1901, King Edward VII knighted Henry Doulton and in 1902 King Edward VII conferred the double honor of the royal warrant and the specific right to use the title "Royal" for his work. This Royal Warrant authorized. the company to use the word ROYAL in reference to its products.

Doulton at all times produced fine china for both domestic and international market, but after World War II the focus shifted to simpler designs that could be mass produced at a price palatable to the general public. Today, Royal Doulton is still producing popular figurines and fine bone china as well as the Doulton Lambeth line of stoneware. The Lambeth Studio in London continued in existence until 1956.

Through his efforts, Sir Henry Doulton (1820-1897) developed an organization that remains a modern and thriving, international company. Having taken over many of its rivals both in industrial and decorative wares, the Royal Doulton Group is now the largest manufacturer of ceramics in Britain.