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Children beat the clay c1860
© Geoffrey Godden
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Children in Staffordshire's potteries |
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Mould runners and jigger turners: working at the clay end of the pottery
Read the accounts of some mould runners
Large numbers of children were employed at the ‘clay end’ of the factory, helping to shape and fire the ware. A thrower, forming pots on the wheel, required three helpers; one to turn the wheel, one to prepare the clay and cut it into balls of the right size, and one to carry away the finished wares to the stove where they would dry. In the 19th century more and more pottery was being made using moulds. A plate-maker or presser, shaped the ware by pressing bats of clay onto plaster moulds spinning on a ‘jigger wheel’. He, too, required three helpers: a ‘jigger-turner’, a ‘batter-out’ who prepared the clay, and a ‘mould-runner’.
Pressing flatware c1860
© Geoffrey Godden |
Due to the speed at which pressers worked it was agreed by everyone that the mould-runner’s job was one of the hardest in a factory. Little boys of eight or nine would take two heavy plaster moulds, each with a damp clay plate on it, and run with them out of the workshop to the drying stove, place the moulds on the shelves, pick up two dried plates on their moulds and run back with them, just in time to repeat the process.
This would continue for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. In addition to the speed of the work and the weight of the moulds the children suffered from the rapidly changing temperatures: in the winter this could range from just above freezing in the workshop to almost 100 degrees in the stove. The workshops were dusty and often damp and this also affected the children’s health
Other heavy or dangerous jobs done by young children included carrying loads of clay weighing up to 56 pounds each to the workshops and preparing it for use; working in the ovens, stacking the ware to be fired and bringing it out again when finished, often while the oven was still very hot; and, most dangerous of all, dipping the once-fired pots into liquid glaze which contained raw lead. Dipping ware was well paid but there was a high risk of lead poisoning, which could result in paralysis or even death.
Words: Miranda Goodby
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