| Swansea’s growth from seaport
and market town to principal industrial centre resulted in the appearance
of a prosperous middle class within its inhabitants. The combination of
prime industrial site and new market demands led to the development of a
ceramics industry that was to achieve world-renown. The Cambrian Pottery
founded in the eighteenth century, benefited from an input of ideas based
on the successful business strategies of Josiah Wedgwood as well as a stream
of extremely talented ceramic artists. By the nineteenth century the pottery
was producing porcelain that rivalled that of Sevres and is still very collectable.
Its neighbour in the Strand was the Glamorgan Pottery, which although relatively
small in size maintained a range and quality of output over a quarter of
a century that few potteries of a comparable size could achieve. Whilst
in nearby Landore, Callands Pottery also produced earthenware in the mid-nineteenth
century. |
