I first met Palin Thorley about 1964. He was one of those wonderful characters who give something special to a small town, as Williamsburg then was. If one didn’t know Palin, one surely knew his beat-up old station wagon—and kept away from it when it was on the road. We met when I was digging the foundation for a church on the lot next to his studio/home on Jamestown Road. I got him talking about some fakes he had discussed with John Graham, who, as curator for Colonial Williamsburg, had acquired them in a collection of more than five hundred ceramic figures in England two years earlier.

In the later 1960s and into the 1980s I visited Palin in the evenings, and we talked about the (his) old days, mostly in England. His unhappy departure as a Colonial Williamsburg agent had festered and he had only derogatory things to say about it—us, actually, since I was a curator there. If I were silly enough to try to defend my foundation, or at least to try to soften his accusations, I would be kicked out of his house and asked never to return. The next day, of course, the phone call would come: “John, come back to see me so we can talk pots.” With the promise—never kept—that we would talk only about pots, I would return for another eventful evening. Sometimes he would tell me instead of his experiences in the trenches of France during World War I, as a British soldier fighting for his king and country. He could name each of the fallen boys from his South Staffordshire regiment; he even remembered the names of many of their loved ones, including his future sister-in-law.

Although I believe I knew it then, until I went through his papers I didn’t fully realize how important Palin Thorley was in the field of ceramic production. Many of his local friends were those who spoke his language, local archaeologists such as Norman Barka and Christine Sheridan. In 1970 Chris sat down with Palin and recorded him on more than sixteen tapes, representing seven to eight hours of reminiscences. (These, along with the one tape I recorded, in 1976, were immensely helpful in my research and are either directly or indirectly used in this article.) Other friends included those in the potting world, primarily the Mahoney family—Jimmy, his son Fred, and his nephew Charles Chrone. In 1986, when Thorley finally admitted that he could no longer manage alone, Charles took charge of his finances, got him into a retirement home nearby, and spent much time caring for him. He worked hard to make Palin’s last days comfortable and, when Palin finally died, settled his estate.

When Palin moved into the retirement home, his home-shop-pottery was cleared out and things were scattered everywhere. I gathered up any and all pieces of paper that might have some meaning and stored them in trunks, boxes, and a file cabinet, where they remained until he died, the following year. I eventually petitioned the courts and was granted his papers, which I subsequently presented to the Rare Manuscript Department of the Swem Library at the College of William and Mary. Palin’s furnishings and some of his wares were sent to New York to be auctioned at Christie’s. I was able to purchase a few items, including the signed Wedgwood plates and the two figures. I bought several hundred additional pieces at a big sale that was held shortly after he moved to the retirement home. Some things—for example the plates with unfired decoration—were given to me several years later by the Reverend David Tetrauld, a mutual friend who took on the task of organizing and managing the sale. Most of the ceramics I bought at the sale were unsold perfect, unfinished, seconds, or experimental pieces from Palin’s Williamsburg days, but I did find in the attic an important group of dishes dating from his years in England and the East Liverpool, Ohio, area. All of them were made at potteries at which Thorley had worked, either on staff or under contract. Some of these pieces I now know were designed by him; he might have designed the rest, but that cannot be confirmed.

To illustrate this paper I have borrowed objects from several collections, including those of Rol and Marline Collins, Clark Taggart, the Reverend David Tetrauld, Trudy and Tom Moyles, and the Whitehall Restaurant (formerly Thorley’s home and studio), among others. The names of the owners appear in the captions to the illustrations.

Most of the information in this paper came from the Thorley Papers, now at the Swem Library at the College of William and Mary; the sixteen tapes of interviews taken by Christine Sheridan, for which I am most grateful; information provided me by my friend Jo Cunningham, also a Thorley fan, regarding Thorley’s East Liverpool period; and from the many conversations my dear friend Palin and I had of an evening, sometimes over a glass of port, in his living room on Jamestown Road.

Thorley was born in and of the Potteries. His ancestors on both sides worked in the field. His grandfather Joseph Thorley, who started what became the Hanley School of Art, had trained at Ridgeway, and his father, John Thorley, had trained under him. Both were competent ceramic painters, which, one might assume, is why Palin was apprenticed in the painting department at Wedgwood. As you have just read, Thorley’s father became upset with the Potteries and at Palin’s birth became a full-time painter. In spite of his anti-Potteries feeling, he taught his sons the basics of designing and producing slipware before Palin had any training in either art or pottery making.

At the age of ten, in 1902, along with his academic education, Thorley started studying art at the Hanley School of Art. Two years later he won firsts in drawing and other exams. In 1906 he started his apprenticeship at Wedgwood and continued as a journeyman and assistant to John E. Goodwin, head of the painting department, until he left to fight in the war. Although Thorley was apprenticed to the painting department at Wedgwood, he was given projects that taught him to design forms for dinnerware and the technique of lithophane. He must have learned the technique of pâte sur pâte during the short period after he left Wedgwood to work for Lawrence Burke, one of the best known producers of pâte sur pâte in England. Thorley had left Wedgwood due to the strict military way Sir Cecil Wedgwood was running the factory. Sir Cecil convinced him to return, shortly before he left for war.

Thorley worked as art director at three major potteries—Simpsons, New Chelsea, and Charles Allerton and Sons—before immigrating to the United States in 1927.

Josiah Wedgwood, Etruria, Staffordshire
Thorley’s seven-year apprenticeship in the painting department at Wedgwood started in 1906 under James Hodgkiss.

The Theodore Roosevelt dinner service was first ordered from Wedgwood by the White House for Roosevelt’s state dinners in 1902, and all 1,296 pieces were delivered to Washington the next year.1 In the next administration the wife of President William Howard Taft decided to use the same service and ordered an additional 360 pieces from Wedgwood in 1910.2 It may have been the Taft service that Thorley was involved with, or perhaps replacement pieces produced between 1906 and 1908, during the last years of the Roosevelt administration. Thorley stated in an interview with Dorothy Levy that Hubert Cholerton was the crest painter for the Roosevelt service, which Wedgwood confirms,3 but Wedgwood records do not mention the names of the other men who probably were working under him. It would seem logical that more than one decorator would be needed to paint the crests on such large orders.

Soho Pottery (subsequently Simpsons, Ltd.), Cobridge, Staffordshire

On his return to Wedgwood after the war, in 1918, Thorley had a conversation with Daisy Makeig-Jones, whose Fairyland Lustre is still highly collect­ible. She complimented him on his painting and said she hoped he would stay on. His reply was,

New Chelsea Porcelain Company, Longton, Staffordshire

In spite of Thorley’s uncanny memory for names, it is difficult to pin down exact dates from his interviews and later correspondence. And, one must remember, he is recalling information in some cases fifty years after the events. Evidence confirms, however, that he is correct when he states, “In 1920–21 I really started going places and became designer, art director, and manager of decorations department, so forth and so on, at the New Chelsea Porcelain Company.”

He remained at New Chelsea until he went to Allerton’s, in 1924 or 1925. New Chelsea Porcelain (later China) Company produced fine bone china dinner and tea ware in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, until 1961, when it was taken over by Grosvenor China Ltd. The names “New Chelsea” and “Chelson” were both used as part of their marks during the years Thorley was at the factory. New Chelsea marks usually, but not exclusively, incorporated an anchor, probably based on the mark used by the famous eighteenth-century Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory in London, even though there was no connection between the two potteries.

New Chelsea Porcelain produced exclusive designs for better-grade department stores such as Harrods in London, Plummers in New York, and Henwood in Johannesburg, South Africa. As their business was international, they had offices and a showroom in London, at Hatton Garden, and Thorley was there quite frequently, working with companies wishing to acquire exclusive patterns. It was on one of these trips that he read in the paper of the excavations of the tomb of Tutankhamun—an Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh (r. 1333–1323 b.c.)—which inspired a series of his designs.

Ancient Egypt always fascinated Thorley; in fact, the thought that he might be sent there contributed to his decision to join the army during World War I.

Charles Allerton and Sons, Longton, Staffordshire
In 1924 or 1925 Thorley moved to Charles Allerton’s pottery as director of design and a member of the board. When he arrived he discovered that the Allerton factory had never stopped producing the popular nineteenth-century pottery called luster. Although production was small, it was hand-painted by a woman, Mrs. Woolley, who had learned the art at Allerton’s in the 1840s and had continued to make it. She learned it from a woman, “Old Diana,” who had painted luster at Allertons for many years before that. Thorley tells the story:

Thorley in the United States
Unlike his days in Staffordshire, where Thorley would either be on the staff of one company or move on to another, in America he would sometimes be the art director of one company but still do contract work for another. Thorley first worked for Sebring. While there (1927) he designed for Leigh Pottery, an affiliate of Sebring. Two years later, in 1929, he was art director for the American Chinaware Corp., and, by 1930 at the latest, he was designing for Taylor, Smith and Taylor. For the next ten to twelve years, until about 1941, Thorley was producing forms and decoration for that pottery. Yet through ads in 1937 magazines we know he was producing wares for James River Pottery; he produced the E-shape for Hall China Company in East Liverpool, Ohio, in the early 1940s; and by about 1941 he had started producing for Colonial Williamsburg. For Williamsburg, he was actually producing and not just designing the wares, as he was for the other, more commercial factories. It is also reported that he did projects for Stetson China Co., Edwin M. Knowles, and Homer Laughlin.4

In 1956 Thorley stopped producing for Williamsburg, but he continued to make similar forms, which he sold to gift shops and department stores in Washington, New York, and Boston, as well as out of his shop in Williamsburg. In 1958 he started designing teapots, again for Hall China Company.

During his active years in the Ohio area, Thorley received an honorary doctorate from the University of West Virginia. In 1937, at the completion of the construction of the great Art Nouveau building, the Tower of Learning, at the University of Pittsburgh, Thorley assisted in the creation of the ceramics department, which consisted of a gallery, for exhibiting a collection of antique ceramics, and a work area, which was described as “a complete pottery in miniature.” There, with kilns and other pottery equipment, Thorley instructed students in the making of pottery. In 1929 he was described as the “Internationally known ceramist and Director of the Univer­sity of Pittsburgh ceramics department.”5 He apparently held the position as director of the ceramics department for only for a few years, because in 1942 he was described in an article as “formerly Professor of Ceramics at the University of Pittsburgh.” Thorley enjoyed the “professor” title and encouraged its use.

Thorley’s most important publication was “The Potter’s Technique at Tell Beit Mirsim Particularly in Stratum A,” in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 21–22 (1943), which he wrote with James Leon Kelso, professor of Old Testament studies at Pittsburgh-Flenia Theological Seminary. The article deals with the excavations of Tell Beit Mirsim, an area of Babylon in the sixth century b.c. Thorley discussed the techniques used in producing the ceramics; Professor Kelso discussed the history. A flyer promoting the article reads, in part, “A very important feature is the detailed study of the pottery from the technical ceramic standpoint. . . . This study will be revolutionary in its significance of our understanding of the process of manufacture in ancient Israel.”

Thorley also wrote many articles for magazines and trade journals. Among them was a twenty-seven-part series entitled “Pottery Fundamentals” published in Pottery, Glass and Brass Salesman starting in May 1938 and continuing at least to June 1941. Shortly thereafter he published a two-part article, “The Ceramic Designer in Wartime,” in Crockery and Glass Journal, in June and August 1942.

Thorley became a financial success working in the East Liverpool area. He lived near the country club, where he spent much of his free time playing golf (very badly) with his cronies. He admitted that he was often distracted from his work by friends who encouraged him to join them at the golf course. The noted potter Don Schreckengost told me the story of a drunken golf match brought on by a disagreement between Thorley and Frederick Rhead, the most successful designer in the East Liverpool area, whom Thorley considered his rival and who was equally as egotistical. Apparently everyone from the potting industry was on hand to see the two of them fall over each other, and the hilarious affair was the talk of the industry for months.

Thorley loved to tell stories about fooling important people in the potting industry with reproductions he had made. He had bragged about how he could make pots out of East Liverpool mud and so, as a joke, his friends dumped a pile of it in his driveway—from which he proceeded to make a jug:

Sebring Pottery Company, Sebring, Ohio, and
Leigh Potters, Inc., Alliance, Ohio

Thorley stated, “In 1927, June, I came to Sebring, Ohio, as art director for Charles Leigh Sebring Pottery. My objective was to design a completely new style . . . for the domestic American pottery industry,” to which he later added, “to design new styles, new models, new processes for the Sebring Pottery Company.” It was while he was at Sebring, I believe, that Thorley worked for Leigh Pottery, an affiliate of Sebring. The full extent of his accomplishments at either factory is not clear. It is usually thought that he designed the forms and had someone else design the decal decoration. Thorley claims that he designed the mark used at both Sebring and Leigh, an outline of the state of Ohio encompassing the name of the factory as well as other wording, sometimes the name of the pattern. In relation to this period, an article entitled “Modern Pottery Pioneers,” published in the March 1941 issue of Pottery and Glass Salesman, states:

American Chinaware Corporation, East Liverpool, Ohio
The American Chinaware Corporation, which had its headquarters in Chicago but its potteries in the East Liverpool area, was a short-lived amalgamation of about eight small local potteries, including Sebring. The formation statement, released in the July 1929 issue of Ceramic Industry by the executives of the organization, reads in part:

The article on the Nouvelle shape states, “The name ‘Nouvelle’ appropriately given to the new shape made by the American Chinaware Corporation, of Sebring, Ohio, indicates in itself the modernistic trend of its pattern. Designed by the English artist J. Palin Thorley, this shape is the first one brought out under the ‘Amerce’ banner, and has already proven its worth to the buyers . . . . This Nouvelle shape is made in two colors—buff and celadon—and it lends itself to many beautiful patterns.” The article gives the impression that Thorley designed both the shape of the dinnerware and the decoration placed on it, although it is generally believed that Thorley was responsible only for the shape, as that is what he was best known for during that period. The article mentions a number of other designs on the Nouvelle shape, among them Knickerbocker, The Goose Girl (said to be “one of Mr. Thorley’s patterns”), Sylvan, Gay Morn, Deauville, Coral Gables, April Showers, and Rainbow.

The attribution of Nouvelle to Thorley is confirmed by Harvey Duke, who wrote in Official Price Guide to Pottery and Porcelain (1995): “Of the four known shapes, I have confirmed that [Thorley] designed three [Duke lists Nouvelle, Briar Rose, and Primrose]; it is likely he designed Plaza as well.”

Taylor, Smith, and Taylor, Chester, West Virginia
In the East Liverpool area Palin Thorley is better known for the dinnerware shapes he created than for the decoration that is applied to them, because often others were brought in to design the colored motifs to be applied to the designs he created. In Price Guide of Pottery and Porcelain (1995), Harvey Duke credits three Taylor, Smith & Taylor dinnerware shapes to Thorley: Marvel, in 1932; Laurel, in 1933; and Vogue, in 1934. The plates of various sizes in Empire (1936) and Luray (1938) are the same as in Thorley’s Laurel, which suggests the possibility that Thorley could have been the designer of the hollowware as well. The designer(s) of the other Taylor, Smith & Taylor dinnerware shapes have not been determined. We can credit Thorley with producing Taylor, Smith & Taylor’s dinnerware shapes and—thanks to his signature being included in the design—we can also credit several printed monochrome patterns to him.

With his knowledge of ceramics produced in Staffordshire and other parts of England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Thorley was able to create several designs which appear as if they were early copperplate transfer-printed wares. According to Mark Gonzalez,

Romantic ruins, so popular a hundred years earlier, were the inspiration for not one but two of Thorley’s designs: English Abby and Castle. Spring Bouquet, its variant Center Bouquet, and Dogwood were created very much in the same mode. These dinner services were most commonly produced in two colors—traditional blue and red. Green and black are less common, as are brown examples, sometimes with painted color highlights. Gonzalez adds to the list of colors mulberry and Rose Mist (pink body). When Thorley’s signature is present, it generally appears at the lower right corner of the printed motif and is found on the larger plates and on circular serving bowls; rare examples of saucers have also displayed his signature.

In one of his taped interviews Thorley discusses making designs for Quaker Oats Company—which must have been Marvel—while working for Taylor, Smith & Taylor. Gonzalez elaborates: “In late 1932, Quaker Oats approached Homer Laughlin China Company to make pieces for a breakfast set to be packed in boxes of oats. Quaker Oats never relied on one pottery to provide dishes. Ever since the late 1920s, when Quaker Oats offered china products, at least two potteries provided the wares.”7

Thorley also discussed the aborted attempt to do silk-screening, which he successfully used in Williamsburg years later.

James River Potteries, Inc., Hopewell, Virginia
In November 1937, when Thorley met the Product Review Board at Colonial Williamsburg, he was introduced as “Mr. J. Palin Thorley of the James River Potteries, Inc.” The James River Potteries, with headquarters in Richmond, produced a line of chinaware in Hopewell, just south of Richmond. Thorley’s association with the company is known through two ads.

A James River Potteries ad in the November 1937 issue of House and Garden illustrates two plates displaying “Two More Striking Patterns by J. Palin Thorley,” listing them as Isle of Palms and Pocahontas. Another ad, published the same year in an unidentified magazine, announced two new patterns produced by Thorley for James River Potteries: Powhatan and Rappahannock. The ads illustrate three of the designs on one shape consisting of a series of molded bands around the edge continuing partway into center of the plate, and one on what appears to be a plain rim.

As Thorley is better known, at this time in his career, for designing shapes rather than surface decoration, one might be tempted to believe that he was responsible for the distinctive multiline service illustrated here. However, the ads crediting him only with the “patterns” appear to be correct, as Harvey­ Duke, in Official Price Guide of Pottery and Porcelain (1995, p. 353), credits the shape to Simon Slobodkin and appropriately calls it Cascade.

Hall China Company, East Liverpool, Ohio
Palin Thorley stated that in 1942 he was art director of the Hall China Company, but he might have been working under contract rather than being on the staff. He was still designing for Hall long after he left East Liverpool and was living in Williamsburg. Whether on staff or under contact, Thorley designed some important and successful forms for Hall. Probably the best known is his E-shape, which was sold at Sears Roebuck and other retailers with different printed or decal designs. Thorley produced at least two series of six teapots in the 1950s and 1960s.

Thorley’s E-shape. The E-shape dinnerware, designed by Thorley for Hall and used with the so-called Granitone body, was made in many different colored designs. In the 1942–43 Sears Roebuck catalog three patterns are offered: Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Richmond. The cataloge states, “Granitone was created for Sears by the noted designer, J. Palin Thorley, and made exclusively for Sears by Hall China Company. Although it was introduced only a year ago, its big public acceptance proves its popularity with home-makers who like to set a beautiful table with dinnerware they know will give good service.” The rare appearance of the designer’s name in a catalog such as Sears illustrates the esteem in which Thorley was held at that time.

It is well established that Thorley designed the E-shape, but nothing is said specifically about the Granitone body. It is believed the term was used by Sears for advertising purposes.8 Thorley’s extensive file of glaze and body formulas includes both bodies and glazes developed or being developed for Hall, one dated 1939.

At least eleven patterns were placed on Thorley’s E-shape dinnerware, most for general distribution. In addition to the ones sold exclusively through Sears, Cameo Rose was sold exclusively by the Jewel Tea Company. To what extent, if any, Thorley’s hand is in the different color designs and decals is not established.

Thorley ordered pieces of E-shape from Hall—both unglazed and glazed but not decorated—for which he paid one quarter list price rather than the normal one-half list price. This may be due to the fact that, as the designer, he received a special discount. The examples found in 1986 in his studio, besides the biscuit candlestick, include an unglazed creamer and a glazed but undecorated teapot. The teapot was in his attic and has his printed Williamsburg mark.

In November 1950 the British trade magazine Pottery and Glass included the statement that Thorley “is influenced by the work of the 18th century American furniture designer Duncan Phyfe.” The assertion was probably derived from the Sears catalog, which states, “Exquisite beauty for your table in a specially designed shape after the ever-popular, clean-cut Duncan Phyfe style.” It is not known whether it is based on statements made by Thorley or whether it was pure supposition. The British author also mentioned “Pure white dinnerware made from 1941–2 for Sears Roebuck Co. by Hall China Co. of East Liverpool Ohio, USA designed by J Palin Thorley.”

Hall, Thorley Teapots. Thorley is credited with designing six teapots, often called Thorley Teapots, many of which have embedded rhinestones. They do not, however, appear to be the first he designed. The flyer illustrated in figure 74 entitled “6 Distinctive Shapes Designed by J. Palin Thorley” was sent to him by Joseph Thompson of Hall China Co. in March 1958 with handwritten suggestions for improvements. With the discovery of these six, one must wonder whether Thorley designed more of the many teapots produced by Hall.

At the same time that Thorley received the flyer he also received an offer to design six more teapots. Joseph Thompson, who later signed himself as “Secy. & Sales Mgr.” for Hall, contacted Thorley by phone and followed up shortly thereafter with a scribbled note dated February 25, 1958, on a Hall China Co. order form:

Thompson made several suggestions that do not appear to have been carried out, but he did suggest the use of rhinestones, which do appear on several of the Hall teapots Thorley designed: “‘Diamonds’ could also be carried out on handle or body—see sample enclosed—In fact Diamonds could be used exclusively—eliminating decorating, material, labor and firing.” Thorley did not like the idea of rhinestones, but said that because it was a special idea for Thompson’s he would do it under specific conditions. A week later Thompson sent another note: “The Main [point] is this—We want you to develop 6 new teapots. You can do and I am counting on you. How it is done is up to you. All you have to do is to quote us a price. This can be drawings only, or from drawings to modeling, or a time bases and expenses.” Thorley, being a hard businessman, dickered with Hall until September 11, when he finally signed the contract and started sending the preliminary drawings. By December he was working with the mold-maker on the first three teapots. In January 1959 he writes, “Working drawings of No. 5 are almost complete. I have made this specifically to suit the Brilliants, with recesses in the design to hold them.” In February the working drawings for the final teapot, No. 6, were sent to Hall.

Thorley started working on designs for Colonial Williamsburg about 1937 and was in production with a jug the following year. Even though he moved to Williamsburg and set up his pottery there in 1949, he continued to design for Hall, and perhaps other East Liverpool factories, for at least another decade. Thorley’s work in Virginia, both at Colonial Williamsburg and on his own, varied vastly from his previous experiences in the large commercial factories where his responsibilities ended when the objects he designed went into production. In Williamsburg (a period that will be discussed in part 2 of this article, to be published in Ceramics in America, 2006) he was responsible for the actual production of his ware, filling orders, and keeping up with the demands of his customers. This tedium may have been the downfall of this most creative and knowledgeable man.