| Summary: | This thesis sets out to shew the inherent weaknesses which developed as the Staffordshire Pottery industry grew and which led to its comparative decline in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, in the face of the growing industrialised economies of the U.S.A., Germany and France. The industry reflected Britain's expansion of trade, and the growth of a free enterprise economy, with high capital accumulation. However, by mid-century the industry shewed signs of decline. The weaknesses were firstly a large dependence on the American market which made it vulnerable to financial and political crises in that country, which caused sharp vacillations in trade. Secondly a home economy that was stagnating as the British industrial revolution was ageing and thirdly the challenge of the scientific revolution in Germany and the U.S.A.which made them formidable trade rivals. The fourth weakness in the Staffordshire Pottery industry was that the thrusting entrepreneurial generation ofWedgwood, Minton, Spode and others had not been replaced by equal talent in their successors. The industry lacked vigorous marketing techniques with direct communication with management, capable of reacting swiftly to change to the demands of foreign markets. By and large, Pottery firms suffered from poor business management, high unit costs, lack of mechanisation, limited technical training, and the need for modem design and marketing policy to meet the changes in taste and social habits. World trading patterns changed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and countries, to which pottery manufacturers had exported large quantities of cheap earthenware, were developing their own industries. The general return to protection overseas in the 1880s held back the expansion of British exports. Only Doultons realised that the way forward was by research into technical advances into new fields and so they developed industrial ceramics for the electrical industry. The significant event at the end of the century was the formation of the North Staffordshire Ceramic Society in 1900, which pionted the way forward for the industry and which led to the technical advances this century.
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