Llanelly Pottery

The Llanelly Pottery was the last of the large scale potteries in South Wales.  Sarah Jane Roberts (1859-1935) was the main decorator of the cockerel plates which became its trademark in the early part of the twentieth century. Her father Thomas Roberts (1833-1904) was a glost fireman and three of her sisters Annie (1856-1886), Margaret (1864-1921) and Elizabeth (1868-1940) were also paintresses although their work was not as well known.

In the mid ninteenth century, working conditions at some of the English potteries were hard. Thomas Chapman Dewsberry (1817-1892) told how he fainted through hunger at the Herculanium Pottery in Liverpool, often going a whole day without food. In 1841, eleven year old George Guest (1831-1903) gave evidence to Samuel Scriven’s Royal Commission on child labour describing his fourteen hour working day at Enoch Wood’s factory in Burslem.

“I ought to be at work at half past six, when the quarter bell rings; I am allowed half an hour for breakfast, and take it in stove room; I do not take half an hour to eat it, not more than ten minutes; must eat it as sharp as I can; I can please myself though about that; I take it quick ’cause John takes his quick and gets to work pretty sharp; should like a play in the yard, but caana have it; I go home to dinner and then take my hour; leave work at six on Mondays, and at half-past eight other days; when I get home my legs ache; I am too tired to play then, but get my supper and go to bed. Sometimes father tells me to read a chapter: he prays to us every night; I can read pretty well; don’t write, but I shall try soon”

Thomas’ father William Roberts (1805-c1845) was one of the many potters from Staffordshire who moved to Llanelli with his family when William Chambers Junior opened the Llanelly Pottery in 1839.  A report in the Llanelly Star in 1925 said:

“whether the proprieter started the works as a hobby or as an ordinary commercial venture, with an eye to the development of his estate (on which the town was largely built), cannot now be decided”

It suggests that the Pottery paid the expenses of some of the first pottery workers and some of their families to travel from Staffordshire to Llanelly.

“The route was  by canal barge to Runcorn, Liverpool to Swansea by packet and road to Llanelly, the journey occupying seven days.”

According to Gareth Hughes and Robert Pugh’s book ‘Llanelly Pottery’ stipulation was placed in many of the contracts that employees were required to:

“refund by weekly installments whatever monies may have been advanced to him for the purpose of bringing him here”

According to John Edwards in his 2001 book Llanelli Story of a Town, Chambers:

“.. made sure that there were good homes for his workers by building substantial houses for them in Pottery Street and Pottery Row (later Pottery Place).”

Despite that, Richard Guest (1803-1860) told his family that when he arrived in Llanelli, people were inhospitable, reluctant to give him lodgings, and unable to understand his English. In shops he had to point to what he wanted. Richard Guest returned to Burslem but his son David (1825-1892) remained, as did the Henshalls, Martha Cartledge (b1814), the Tofts, a Wedgwood and the Tunstalls who ran a cafe in Cowell Street under the slogan “T for Tunstall, Tunstall for Tea”.  Thomas Roberts kept his Staffordshire accent throughout his life. 

What happened to William Roberts senior is not clear.  By 1851 the census records his wife Sarah as a widow living in Burslem with three of her six children; William, Thomas and Annie who are all working in potteries.   In her memoir, June Sinclair suggests the family may have spent three days in the workhouse.  Subsequently Thomas Roberts returned to Llanelli where he lodged with Margaret Wells.  He married her daughter Jane in 1856. 

Thomas and Jane Roberts had 11 children, seven of whom survived beyond infancy and worked in the Llanelly Pottery

• Annie (1856-1886) who married Ebenezer David Morgan and died a few weeks after the birth of her son Captain David Roberts-Morgan.   
• Sarah Jane (1859-1935) Auntie Sal, main decorator of the cockerel plates now the best-known wares from the Pottery
• John Wells (1862-1932)
• Margaret (1864-1921) also a painter who married Cornelius Stackpole Anthony
• Elizabeth (1868-1940) Auntie Liz worked in the pottery from about 1888 until the early part of the twentieth century, hand painting designs which included roses and fruit. Apart from a crude L as a means of identification her work was not marked but her painting was said to be as good as, and sometimes better than that of Samuel Sufflebotham.  Latterly her sister Sarah’s Jane’s cockerels became so famous that they got all the attention. Like Sarah Jane she became ill during the last part of her life and was nursed by her niece Annie Gwendoline Hawkins until her death in 1940.
• Mary (1873-?) Auntie Polly, who married pottery manager Gwilym David Thomas and had eight children
• Emma (1874-1944) who married William Hawkins and had one daughter Annie.  William died in Iraq in the first world war

By 1873 the Roberts family seemed to have returned to Staffordshire once again.  Jane died in 1874, four months after the birth of her daughter and then once again Thomas returned to Llanelli, shortly before the closure of the Llanelly Pottery in 1875.    Many Staffordshire potters were then leaving Llanelli but he stayed and made a living selling produce from his garden, which his son was to develop into Swansea Road Nurseries. 

The Pottery was re-opened two years later by David Guest (1825-1892), helped by his brother George Guest (1831-1903) and their nephew Richard Dewsberry (1841-1906).

Pottery workers could be exposed to high quantities of lead which was used in glazes and mineral dust making them susceptible to conditions such as lead poisoning and silicosis.  Was that responsible for the wasting illnesses that killed Sarah Jane Roberts and her sisters Emma (1874-1944) and Elizabeth (1868-1940)? According to their great niece June Sinclair: “They seemed to get smaller and thinner until they faded away.” 

The business remained in the family until, under pressure from cheap foreign imports, it closed in 1922 and was subsequently demolished. Nothing remains on the site except a blue plaque on the wall of a nearby shopping centre.