GEORGE L. MILLER types which are a breakdown of a classifica- tion system that separates ceramics into por- celain, stoneware, and earthenware. Each of Classification and these broad categories are subdivided into wares. Porcelain for example is subdivided Economic Scaling into hard paste, soft paste, bone china, and of 19th Century often by country of origin. Stoneware and earthenware are broken into types based on Ceramics observable differences in glaze, decoration, and paste, e.g., tin-glazed earthenware, lead- ABSTRACT glazed redware, white salt-glazed stoneware, combed slipware, German salt-glazed stone- Archaeological classification of ceramics is an out- ware, creamware, rockingham ware, pearl- growth of the study of material from 17th and 18th ware, lustreware, and many others. century sites and as such they reflect the classification Classification of 17th and 18th century system in use during those centuries. By the 19th cen- wares do not present great difficulties because tury the range of wares available was greatly reduced of major recognizable differences between due to the success of the English ceramic industry which displaced many fine ware types such as white them. In addition to ease of classification, salt glazed stoneware and tin-glazed earthenware. The most of them can be identified as to country of major type available in the 14h century was English origin, which facilitates the study of trade white earthenware which included creamware, pearl- relationships. The terminology used for ware, whiteware, and the stone chinas. By the 19th archaeological assemblages follows that used century classification of these wares by potters, merchants, and people who used them was by how by the potters, merchants, and the people who they were decorated (i.e., painted, edged, dipped, bought the ceramics, thus facilitating synthe- printed etc.) rather than the ware types as defined by sis of archaeological and historic information. archaeo!ogists. Using a classification based on decora- However, in the 19th century things changed. tion will achieve two things: an ability to integrate In the second half of the 18th century, a archaeological data with historical data and establish- ment of a more consistent classification system than is revolution took place in the English ceramic now possible using ware types. industry. This period saw the introduction of The second part of this paper generates a set of index transfer printing, calcinated flint, liquid values from price lists, bills of lading, and account glazes, Cornish clays, calcinated bone, canals books which can be used to study the expenditures for transporting raw materials and finished made on cups, plates, and bowls from archaeological assemblages from the first half of the 19th century. products into and out of the potteries, steam Expenditure patterns from five sites are discussed. power for working clay and pottery, tariffs against Chinese porcelain, favorable trade Introduction treaties with the Continent, and astute market- ing of creamware which culminated in English Ceramic classification by historical archae- domination of the world ceramic tableware ologists has developed through a synthesis of trade by the 1790s. ceramic history and knowledge of the com- Marketing of creamware wrecked havoc in mon ceramic types recovered from excava- the pottery industries of England and the con- tions. Prior to the mid-lWs, most historical tinent. Tin-glazed ware, white salt-glazed archaeology projects involved 17th and 18th stoneware, and to some extent even oriental century projects such as Jamestown, porcelain were displaced from the market. The Williamsburg, Fort Michilimakinac, and pervasiveness of English tableware is well Louisbourg. The study of ceramics from these illustrated by the following comment from B. sites established a typology based on ware Faujas de Saint-Font from his travels to 2 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, VOLUME 14 England, Scotland and the Hebrides which the glaze, a slight cream-like color to the was published in 1797: paste, and density or compactness of the ware. Its excellent workmanship, its solidity, the advantage These differences in the 19th century are the which it possesses of sustaining the action of fire, its result of an evolution of one type out of fine glaze, impenetrable to acids, the beauty and con- another such as whiteware out of pearlware. venience of its form. and the cheapness of its price, have given rise to a commerce so active and so univer- Whiteware does not have a date of introduc- sal that in travelling from Pans to Petersburg, from tion, but it is known that by the 1820s it was Amsterdam to the furthest part of Sweden, and from developing from pearlware. If an assemblage Dunkirk to the extremity of the South of France, one is of ceramics from the first half of the 19th cen- served at every inn with English ware. Spain, Portugal, tury placed before six archaeologists and and Italy are supplied. and vessels are loaded with it is for the East and West lndies and the continent of they are asked for counts of creamware, pearl- America. (as quoted by Arthur Hayden 1952: 135-36). ware, whiteware, and stone china wares, the results will probably be six different enumera- England’s conquest of the world tableware tions. The question of how much blueing the market was through the vehicle of creamware. glaze has to have before it is pearlware or This ware is an 18th century product, and in which sherds have the density to be classified that context it functions like any other ware as stone china all hinge on personal opinions. i.e., it is easy to identify through the charac- Attempts have been made to define pearlware teristics of its glaze and paste. Out of cream- using the Munsel Color Book (Lofstrom ware evolved pearlware in the 1780s. Later 1976:6); however, there is no way of knowing stone china, ironstone, and whiteware were if the archaeological definition of pearlware is developed. These emerged out of creamware the same as that of 19th century potters and and pearlware and are not nearly as identifi- merchants. able by differences of glaze and paste. Archaeological reports dealing with the first Table, tea, and toiletware assemblages from half of the 19th century leave the reader with the 19th century consist almost entirely of the impression that pearlware is one of the creamware, pearlware, whiteware, stone major products of that period. However, when china, and porcelain along with some fairly examining 19th century documents such as rare types such as basalt and lustre glazed price fixing lists, account books, bills of lad- redware. Differences between creamware, ing, and newspaper advertisements, the term pearlware, whiteware, and stone china are pearlware rarely occurs. Simeon Shaw’s The minor when compared to the differences History of the Staffordshire Potteries (1829) between ware types in the 17th and 18th cen- and Chemistry of. Compounds used in the turies. Manufacture of Porcelain, Glass and Pottery When archaeological interests advanced to (1837), does not mention pearlware except as include 19th century sites, it was quite natural an unglazed white body developed by to expand the ware type classification system Chetham and Woolley which was similar to as an evolution of the 18th century types such jasper and basalt (Shaw 1829:225). Ivor Noel as creamware and pearlware. However, by Hume has shown that the term “china- the 19th century, ceramics were being des- glazed” was used for pearlware in the late cribed by the type of decoration they re- 18th century, but even this term seems to be ceived, and ware types became less impor- rather limited in its occurrences (Noel Hume tant. Ware types used by archaeologists for 1969a). The term “PEARL WARE” as part of classification of 19th century assemblages the potter’s mark was used by two fms, one often depend on such things as a slight amount being Chetham and Woolley (1796-1810) of blueing in the glaze, absence of blueing in which used it for its unglazed white stoneware CLASSIFICATION AND ECONOMIC SCALING OF 19TH CENTURY CERAMICS 3 discussed above. The other firm was Skinner C. Ease of classification? Definitely not. and Walker which was in business during the D. Consistency in classification? Definitely not. 1870s (Godden 1964:580). At least IO other E. An ability to integrate data with historical potters used the world “PEARL” as part of documents? Definitely not. ceramic marks in such combinations as F. Information on social status? Nothing seems to indi- “PEARL STONE CHINA,” “PEARL cate that the ware type is related to status with the exception of porcelain. WHITE,” “PEARL CHINA,” and “PEARL IRONSTONE” (see Appendix A). Most of Social status of any commodity is related to these firms began operating in the 1830s and how much the objects costs. Prices for pottery 1840s, and they were producing whitewares, were determined by how they were decorated. often with a slight blue tint to the ceramic Fortunately, the Staffordshire potters had a body rather than the glaze (Godden 1964). series of price fixing agreements in the 18th Archaeologists have defined pearlware as and 19th centuries and some of them have though it was something static; however, an survived. Price fixing lists are available for article titled “Pearlware” by Mellany Delhom 1770, 1783, 1795, 1796, 1814, 1833, and 1846 presents a sequence of eight recipes for pearl- (see Appendix B for citations). These price ware from the Wedgwood factory dating from lists provide cost information for the various 1815 to 1846 (Delhom 1977:62-3). Two sizes of vessels according to how they are Wedgwood plates marked “PEARL” in the decorated. They reveal the classification sys- author’s collection would fall under our classi- tem used by the potters for their products. fication of whiteware. One of these pieces has These price ctaegories, based on decora- a date code for 1861.