Beswick Pottery

Beswick Pottery was established in 1892 by James Wright Beswick, along with his sons John and Gilbert. The business began within Longton, which is located within Stoke on Trent. The pottery is most well known for producing high quality porcelain figures such as animals and also the Beatrix Potter characters. These Beatrix Potter characters have become extremely sought after with many being sold at auctions for large amounts of money.
The pottery began by producing pottery such as Staffordshire dogs and cats, these were extremely popular. Although the business was started by James Wright Beswick, James sadly died in 1921. Despite this, the business was carried on by his grandson John Ewart Beswick who continued to expand the business. The year 1934 meant increased competition for the Beswick business as China began mass production, producing large amounts of pottery. China focused on producing figures of famous horses and champion dogs. 1936 was an important year for Beswick Pottery as it became a limited company, trading under the name John Beswick Ltd.
A chief modeller was employed during 1939; Arthur Gredington had the responsibility of creating the design and moulds for the pottery business. Arthur produced a massive 190 different designs of Rearing Horsemen; these were a massive hit and are still collective items in the present day. From the production of these, the company then switched towards producing pot figures of animals such as cats, dogs, fish, wild animals and also farm animals.
The Beatrix potter characters which were produced, as already mentioned, really helped to raise the profile of the Beswick Pottery, the idea of producing these figures came from Lucy Beswick in 1947. For this production to happen the rights to producing the figures had to be obtained. In 1948 John Beswick managed to obtain the rights to produce ten of the Beatrix Potter characters, this was a major advantage for the Beswick firm. The first Beatrix Potter to be produced was by Arthur Gredington and the character was Jemima-Puddle Duck. In the year 1952 the Beswick organisation gained an even larger advantage, the organisation secured the rights to produce several Disney characters. The characters included Snow White, Mickey Mouse and Bambi. Just like many other of the pottery which Beswick produced, the Disney characters which were produced have also become majorly sought after and have also increased considerably in value.
After many years of successful trading and expansion, the Beswick organisation was sold to Royal Doulton. The new owners continued to produce pottery shaped animals up until 1989, at which point the Beswick name was also dropped and replaced by the Doulton name.
Despite ceasing production in 1989, a new demand was recognised for figures of the Beatrix Potter characters, Doulton began producing these in 1998, aimed specifically at the collectors market. Just four years later, production ended of all Beswick products with the view that the market had been saturated. The original premises of Beswick in Stoke on Trent were sold in 2003 to a property development business.