Pontypool Japanware

'Everywhere Seen, Everywhere Admired’

The Japanning industry was one of Pontypool's most outstanding 18^th century achievements. The term 'Japan' was originally used to describe various methods of varnishing and lacquering applied to furniture imported from the Far East which became extremely fashionable and encouraged a market for English copies.

In 1697, Major John Hanbury of Pontypool’s ironmaster family, developed a rolling mill for producing thin iron sheet and his Pontypool Works then proceeded to undertake the first commercial production of tinplate in Britain. By 1732, it is recorded that one of the Hanbury family employees, Thomas Allgood had invented a new way of japanning the tinplate. The manufactory was in a small cottage at Trosnant and employed only the Allgoods who kept the process a secret. In 1761, after a quarrel the family split up and some set up a rival factory in Usk, 10 miles distant. Pontypool Japanworks was now short of capital and took businessmen into partnership.

The former Japanware workshop in Pontypool

 from a C19th sketch by W H Greene

Articles produced were small domestic items made from ironplate and tinplate. Goods were decorated in imitation tortoiseshell, gilded Chinese landscapes or figures, or painted. Limited production meant that items were expensive - a butter dish with a small yellow rose painted on it cost 1/6d to 2/- in 1754; teatrays were 4/- to 16/-.  Products were sold through agents in the larger towns of England especially commissioned items: personalised snuffboxes and trays decorated with portraits or house views.  In the 1750s, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams of Pontypool, when Ambassador to the Court of Catherine the Great of Russia in St Petersburg, is reported to have presented her with a set of Pontypool Japanware. 

In 1811, Billy ‘the Bagman’ Allgood died on a sales trip to London, his widow sought to continue, but by 1817 production in Pontypool had ceased.  Production continued for a few years at the Usk works and for several years later in the West Midlands factories.

Typology of Pontypool Japanware

Recognition of genuine pieces of Pontypool or Usk Japanware is complicated by the number of different factories including those of the West Midlands, who produced similar or copied products.  Confusion between articles made in Pontypool and elsewhere - all of which are designated 'Pontypool' abound. In the absence of documentation and factory marks it is mainly upon local associations that the identification of Pontypool ware can reasonably rest, but even Midlands japanned goods penetrated into South Wales from an early date, so neither a local provenance nor details of shape and construction alone can demonstrate a local origin.

Contacts

Other museums and galleries which collect and display japanned wares are: National Museum & Gallery of Wales, Cathays, Cardiff at www.nmgw.ac.uk, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery at www.bmag.org.uk and Bantock House & Park at www.wolverhampton.org.uk.

The Historical Society of Early American Decoration (HSEAD) has members who have studied and researched into Pontypool Japanware and its decoration.  For information contact the Society at www.HSEAD.org

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