Charles Coxon

Master Potter

Charles Coxon (1805-1868) emigrated to America from Staffordshire, England. From humble beginnings he became a factory owner and the modeller/designer of some of the most popular ceramic pieces of the 19th Century.

Early Days

Charles Coxon started working life as an apprentice in the local potteries of Staffordshire. He came from a family of Potters and his father Francis (born 1771) described himself on the 1841 census form as a ‘Potter and Packer’. His mother (b.1781) is also on the census form and they are living in Staffordshire. In the family tradition his younger brother William also worked in the industry. Charles and his wife Mary with their seven children live in Longton, Staffordshire, the heart of the English pottery industry.

Longton, Staffordshire

In the mid 18th Century the first porcelain works in Staffordshire was built at Longton. It was not until the early 19th Century that the rise of the bone china industry brought increasing importance to the town. By 1851 there were 42 potteries with only eleven making earthenware.

1832 Pottery Mechanics Institution

Charles was an active committee member in the formation of the Pottery Mechanics Institution, a learning centre for adult education, particularly in technical subjects. A key focus is art and design.

A local newspaper recorded that he attended a meeting in 1832 with Josiah Wedgwood chairing the meeting.

1837 Pottery Mechanics Institution

Charles remained active with the Institution and was himself chairing meetings as recorded in 1837. Interestingly, the main discussion of this particular meeting was to support innovation and mechanisation arguing that it relieves the labourer of arduous duties.

1838 Pottery Mechanics Institution

The Institution had a learning focus on the “Geometry, Design, Drawing, Modelling, Painting, Engraving and the various Arts of Decoration.” It is likely that Charles Coxon learned many of his design skills at the Institution.

1840 Pottery Industry

The pottery industry had grown rapidly with a huge demand in England and overseas for their quality products but by 1842 it faced many challenges.

It is the era of the “Hungry Forties” with a poor economy and new machinery being installed by the pottery owners. The plight of hand-loom weavers of the neighboring county of Lancashire was making national headlines. After being replaced by mechanically operated looms, these workers, who only a few years earlier had been the highest paid in the massive textile industry, were starving by the hundreds.

1842 Pottery Riots

During 1842 there are riots in Charles’ village of Longton against a back drop of a national General Strike started by coal miners around the Potteries. The spark that lit the General Strike and the Pottery Riots was the decision, in June 1842, by W.H. Sparrow, a Longton coal mine owner, to disregard the law by failing to give the statutory fortnight’s notice and imposing a hefty pay reduction of almost a shilling a day on his workers.

Riots followed and troops are ordered into the area. During a demonstration in Longton the troops fired on the striking miners and potters. One person is killed and several hundred injured. At a subsequent trial of 274 people, 146 were sent to prison and 54 deported to Australia. The mechanisation of the industry continued, leading to an acceleration of the growth of Trades Unions.

1844 Tragedy in the Coxon family

Against this economic and strife torn background Charles’ brother William and his wife Hannah decided they should emigrate to America. William travelled first with the intention that Hannah and the children would follow. In 1844 William sailed from Liverpool to New York. Tragedy struck the family when Hannah died in August 1844 while he was away. The three children were sent alone to join their father sailing on the ‘Rochester’ and arriving New York in May 1845.

1849 Emigration to America

In 1849 Charles Coxon at the age of 44 years also decided to emigrate to America with his family. For the voyage he packed pieces of his work as a modeller-designer so that he could demonstrate to any future employer his skills in the trade.

The east-to-west journey by steamship normally lasted about 16-18 days, while sailing ships took at least 40 days on average so everyone who could afford a ticket on a steamship would take it. A fare on a steamship could be £20 or more, while steerage passage on a sailing ship could be as low as £5. The average fully-employed working-class person in the mid 19th century earned about £1 per week.

Charles travelled with his wife Mary and five of their seven children – John (17 years), Charles (13 years), Francis (11 years), Mary (9 years) and Jonathan (6 years). They sailed from Liverpool aboard the steamship ‘Rappahannock’ arriving in New York on 12th November 1849.

1849 A new life in Baltimore

When the family arrived they lived in New Jersey near William Coxon and his family. Charles went to Baltimore to find work and his family joined him later according to the 1850 US Census (they are recorded as Cauxson).

Charles and his eldest son John found work at the Edwin Bennett Pottery Company in Baltimore. Edwin Bennett had emigrated to America in 1841 from Staffordshire, England and had established his pottery company in Baltimore in 1844. The Bennett Pottery was large compared to rivals and manufactured a full range of pottery items from basic crockery to more elaborate ceramics.

It is said that Charles’ examples of his design and pottery skills impressed Bennett. However, Charles and John Coxon were initially employed as Pressers – shaping pottery by pressing a slab of plastic clay between two halves of a mould. The Presser, entirely unaided by machine pressed the plastic clay by hand into the plaster moulds to create the article’s final shape.

Eventually Charles Coxon became the designer and modeller for the Bennett Pottery with many of his pieces now displayed in museums and collections.

1851 Rebekah-at-the-Well

His nine years at the Bennett Pottery Company as senior modeller were very productive for Charles Coxon. The Bennett Pottery Company manufactures a number of his designs that became very popular across America.

In particular a teapot design called ‘Rebekah-at-the-Well’ is a sensational success, copied by many other potteries but they never achieved the quality of design of the Coxon piece. There has been some controversy over this design with at one stage Edwin Bennett saying that he was the designer. However in later years he confided to a close friend that Coxon was the designer but based on an idea that he gave him.

The ‘Rebekah-at-the-Well’ teapot continued to be produced at the Bennett pottery for more than 80 years. Later, in 1904 Barber, a pottery expert and friend of Edwin Bennett listed eighteen designs directly attributed to Charles Coxon most of them created at the Bennett Pottery in Baltimore. He specifically mentioned the Rebekah-at-the-Well teapot as one of these Coxon designs.

"The Rebekah teapot holds a prominent position in the history of nineteenth-century American pottery largely because of its impressive success in the marketplace. Some, including Barber, have minimised the design work (by Coxon) because the decorative Rebekah motif was adapted from an earlier English pitcher called Arabic made by Samuel Alcock and Company in 1847. The inclusion of the Rebekah motif within the unusual octagonal shape of the teapot that Coxon crafted and the detailing of the pot itself however, resulted in the perfect marriage of shape and design. Its enduring popularity attests to the artistry of the piece more powerfully than any critics comment. Even today, 150 years after it was conceived and with Bennett and Coxon largely forgotten the design is still produced and admired."

David Goldberg

American Ceramic Circle, November 1991, New York

1851-1858 Selected pieces designed by Coxon for Bennett Pottery

In total, fourteen pieces by the Bennett Pottery Company are attributed during this period to Charles Coxon. There are likely to be more either not located or cannot be identified with certainty.

1858 Swan Hill Pottery, South Amboy, New Jersey

In 1858 Charles left the Bennett Pottery to own and run the Swan Hill Pottery, South Amboy, New Jersey. At this stage of his life Coxon is keen to own his own pottery and perhaps he could see that Bennett would not give up any ownership to him. However, Coxon obviously left on good terms and Bennett’s notebooks recorded that he later bought clay from Coxon. In later life he also conceded that many of the successful designs of the Bennett Pottery were by Charles Coxon.

Charles remained at the Swan Hill Pottery for two years and produced Rockingham glazed pieces identified by an unmarked raised rectangular pad with clipped corners on the base similar to the one used by the Bennett Pottery. There were a few produced at South Amboy that had the Ch. Coxon mark on the base. These are very rare and collectible and the piece pictured sold for $2,800 in 2014.

In 1860 Charles left Swan Hill and moved to Trenton, New Jersey and for the next two years he worked for Millington & Astbury and then William Young & Sons, both manufacturers of Rockingham ware. In 1861 he designed another piece of ceramic history – The Ellsworth Pitcher.

1861 The Ellsworth Pitcher

The pitcher made by Millington, Astbury & Poulson in 1861 commemorates the shooting death of Colonel Ellsworth, a young protege of Abraham Lincoln. Examples of this piece are marked and highly collectible. The designer of this notable pitcher has been disputed for a century. In 1915 Miss Minnie Coxon claimed that her grandfather, Charles Coxon, designed the pitcher during his brief stint at the firm. In 1991, David Goldberg in a paper to the American Ceramic Circle investigated the various claims and attributed the design to Charles Coxon.

1863 Coxon & Co., Trenton, New Jersey

In 1863 Charles established Coxon & Co. Pottery in Trenton and opened a two-kiln pottery called the Clinton Street Pottery. William Coxon’s son Jonathan (then aged 26 years) joined the company. Like other members of the family Jonathan is a well-trained potter who had mastered all the details of the business.

A year later with the financial backing of John S Thompson the company was re-named Coxon & Thompson. Their company concentrated on the production of ‘creamware’ and ‘white graniteware’.

Coxon’s ability as an owner is demonstrated by the rapid expansion of the pottery. By 1866, more land is acquired and a third kiln built. The culmination of Charles Coxon’s career came during his seven years at Trenton. He had finally achieved his major ambition – financial success as a pottery owner-manager.

During July 1868, on a visit to North Carolina, Charles Coxon fell victim to sunstroke and died aged 63 years.

"Charles Coxon is one of those whose impact on the ceramics industry, especially in Baltimore and Trenton where he achieved his greatest success, is unknown to the general public. Pottery scholars too have generally underrated or ignored Coxon's contributions. His two most famous creations - the Rebekah-at-the-Well teapot produced by the Bennett pottery for more than eighty years after its introduction in 1851 or 1852, and the Ellsworth Pitcher produced in Trenton in 1861 - have been credited to others. It is time to lift the veil of obscurity and dispel such inaccuracies."

(David Goldberg - paper to the American Ceramic Circle, 1991)

Acknowledgements and thanks

The Chipstone Foundation, American Ceramic Circle Journal Vol IX, David J. Goldberg, Francis Bazley Lee 1869-1914 – Genealogical and personal memoir of Mercer County, New Jersey, Trenton Historical Society, Ancestry.com, The British Newspaper Archive, British History Online, Wikipedia.

Appendix - The family of Charles Coxon

John Coxon (b.1832, eldest son of Charles Coxon)

John Coxon’s school education was obtained in Staffordshire, England before he was apprenticed to learn the trade of making china saucers for two years. He came to America with his parents in 1849 aged 17 years.

He worked as a Presser together with his father at the Bennett Pottery until he moved with the rest of his family to South Amboy, New Jersey. After two years the family returned to Baltimore and then subsequently to Trenton, New Jersey where for a short time he was in the employ of Richard Millington.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he was one of the first to enlist in the Second Maryland Regiment but owing to a broken knee his services were not accepted. He became a molder for James Tams then joined Coxon & Thompson when his father formed the company.

On the death of his father in 1868, John (aged 36 years) assumed the co-management of the Coxon & Thompson company together with his mother Emma and younger brother Jonathan. The company was renamed Coxon & Company when Thompson left to work with the younger Jonathan and John successfully managed the company producing hotel china until 1883 when the business was sold to Alpaugh & McGowan.

John Coxon retired from business life and built a handsome residence. He was a member of the Methodist Church, was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party.

Jonathan Coxon (b.1843, son of Charles Coxon)

Graduating from grammar school in Baltimore at the age of thirteen Jonathan entered employment at Edwin Bennett’s queensware pottery company where his father Charles was working as the senior designer.

On the death of his father in 1868, Jonathan (aged 25 years) assumed the co-management of the family company Coxon & Thompson together with his mother Emma and older brother John.

Mr Thompson sold his interest to Bateman & Darrah and with Jonathan entered a new concern. Jonathan became the first manager of the Mercer Pottery and manufactured the first bodies and glazes.

Jonathan became an instructor of Fine Arts at the Faience Art Company of Brooklyn, New York. He resigned from this to become superintendent of the Glasgow Pottery.

He formed a partnership with John Leukel and Andrew Cochran to start the Equitable Pottery in South Trenton. At the end of five years of successful business they sold their interest to the Trenton pottery syndicate. Jonathan then retired but came out of retirement to start the Electrical Porcelain Manufacturing Company from which he retired living a further seven years until his death.