The Dartmouth Pottery was formed by Howard Koppenhagen in 1948 (production started in 1949) on a picturesque site at Warfleet on the west bank of the River Dart. In the early days they made some art wares and unusual items by contracts from other potteries unable to for-fill orders they had. Then for the returning tourist market they made motto tableware including tea plates, cups and saucers plus jugs at that time potteries when other potteries were limited in the use of colours (except for export items) for decorating, due to wartime restrictions still in place. Therefore much pottery of this period sold in Britain was decorated only in combinations of brown, amber, white or made from a blue dyed clay. However it would seem Dartmouth Pottery was better placed and had fewer problems using colour and were able to do colour decorated work for other potteries at this time. In 1949 the Dartmouth Pottery recruited Harry Crute who had worked in the Torquay potteries for many years and was responsible for bringing well known designs to the Dartmouth. These included designs such as motto wares, polka dots, seagulls, fish patterns and variety of scroll and sgraffito work.
In the first few years of production the decorators at Dartmouth were allowed some leeway to develop new designs these involved some simple slip scroll work to more elaborate paintings. Other unusual items were made possibly for business friends of Howard Koppenhagen while the pottery was working up from scratch and Howard was establishing the costings of pottery orders. Then they moved strongly into souvenir ware and the moulded items like flower vases and similar. Hand decorated work ceased in the 1960’s.
In the mid 50’s Dartmouth produced a fish shaped water jug which they called the “Gurgling Jug“ which always caused attention. Early Jugs were made in either white clay or finished in a green glaze. Later in the production line other colours were used varying from deep blue, red and dark brown. Special gurgling jugs were by modelled by Leo Lewis for the Queen and Prince Philip to celebrate their visit to the Britannia Naval College in 1958. Many hundreds of the gurgling jugs were made to promote a variety of alcoholic drinks even though it was just to add water. Read on for more different periods of Dartmouth Pottery.
Pottery marks and backstamps with dates made of this pottery as well as over 250 other Torquay, Devon and West Country potteries can be found in the TPCS Marks Book see ‘Products for Sale’.