Timeline

SOME LANDMARKS in HISTORY

1964

“Visionary Thoughts” - In 1964 Reginald G. Haggar, the watercolour artist, ceramic designer, historian, lecturer and writer, wrote to the Pottery Gazette and Glass Trade Review with his visionary thoughts about preserving a traditional old potbank for the benefit of future generations. This was the germ of the idea for Gladstone Working Pottery Museum.

1970 May

The derelict Gladstone Works, which was owned at the time by the local pottery manufacturer Hostess Tableware Ltd., was put up for sale. £12,500 (now £175k)

1971 March 6th

Urgent local campaign started headed by Robert Copeland, to save the works as a museum.

1971 March 24th - Morning

Local newspaper (Evening Sentinel) headlines - morning edition: 'Trust abandons fight to save kilns.'

1971 March 24th - Evening

Local newspaper (Evening Sentinel) headlines - evening edition: Gladstone Works saved at the 11th hour from the wrecking ball and bulldozers.

1971 May

Deeds to the site were handed over to the Museum Trust.
Staffordshire Pottery Industry Trust (SPIT) Established. 
The name was changed to Staffordshire Pottery Industry Preservation Trust for obvious reasons (now SPIPT)



1971 December

The first 'Engineering Volunteers' started work on site. 

1972

Building restoration - professional builders moved in.
The first teams of daytime vols and evening vols started work behind the scenes.

1973

David Sekers appointed first Museum Director. Sekers was born in 1943, the son of the Hungarian industrialist, Sir Nicholas Sekers, and his wife, Agota. He attended Eton College, where he was a pupil in the house run by Nigel Wykes, and then Worcester College, Oxford.

1973 Autumn

Articles on BBC Radio Stoke and in the Evening Sentinel newspaper, asked for more volunteers to help in preparing the museum

  

1974 August 20th - The Preview Season

The museum opened to the public for the first time. This Preview Season was a 'trial run' (before the Royal opening of the 'First Phase' on 24 April 1975) to see how the museum would 'work' with visitors.  The museum opened on 20th August 1974. Some of the first visitors were children representing many schools in the district.  Entrance charges? Adults 50p  and Pensioners 20p!

In November 1974 David Sekers, Museum Director, wrote to volunteers  "...the preview season is succeeding even more than we expected. So far 12,000 people have been around Gladstone and so now we would like to to plan to extend the Preview Season in the new year. .... the museum will reopen on January 7th"

David Sekers, Museum Director, wrote to
volunteers about the success of the Preview Season
(click on image to make it readable)

During the morning of 20th August 2024 a small group of volunteers from the very early years of Gladstone Pottery Museum met there to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Preview Season. The event was organised by Paul Niblett who provided birthday cake, bubbly and balloons.

L-R  Terry Woolliscroft, Maureen Colclough, Pam Woolliscroft
Barry Lewis, Brian Colclough, Erving Barker, Paul Niblett


 

1974 November 19th

A volunteer evening was laid on by Gladstone Staff – it was a full house!

1975 

The 'Gladstone Centre' was opened on the top floor.

1975 March 15th

Admission fees - 50p admission for adults, 20p for pensioners.

1975 April 24th

The Duke of Gloucester officially opened the museum's First Phase.

Gladstone Pottery Museum
Commemorative coaster 1975


1975/1976

'Operation Bottle' - the Bottle Oven Survey. A team of volunteers from 'North Staffs Junior Chamber' and Gladstone set about surveying the last remaining bottle ovens in The Potteries.

1978 August - Last Bottle Oven Firing

A major fundraising event was organised by staff and volunteers of the museum to create an historic record, on film and audio, of how a traditional Potteries bottle oven was fired with coal. It also raised nuch-needed cash to help preserve the museum's buildings - £250,000 (£2.5 million in today's money)



 

1979

The museum's second director, Dr Francis Celoria, took over from David Sekers. Well known as a ceramic historian and archaeologist, Dr. Celoria had previously worked in the London Museum, in publishing and as a lecturer in archaeology at Keele University. His special field of study was the history of ceramic technology, a field in which he was considered to be the leading authority. Although a Londoner born and bred, Francis Celoria worked in North Staffordshire from 1965.

1986

The National Garden Festival opened in Stoke-on-Trent bringing thousands of visitors to the Potteries, and to Gladstone.

From the National Garden Festival brochure
1986



Kevin Millward
Gladstone Pottery Museum
Mid 1980s

1988

Gladstone £5m plan to save site  - feature in the Evening Sentinel



1989

The museum was on brink of closure due to poor management.

1989

The city of Stoke-on-Trent took ownership of the museum site in 1989, and took over the management of the museum in 1992/94. Following this, the manufacturing section was closed and John Gould (Works Manufacturing Manager) became redundant.

The Assistant Director of the city museum service, Ian Lawley, was involved in the negotiations with the museum trust and the transfer of Gladstone to the local authority. He had input into the day to day management and staffing appointments, as was the line manager for the Gladstone Manager, Malcolm Hawksworth, then Hamish Wood.  Ian Lawley’s own line manager at Stoke-on-Trent city council was Peter Vigurs who was Director of Museums, Arts & Heritage, then later, Director of Leisure & Cultural Services.

1994 May

Stoke-on-Trent City Council took over management of the museum.

2002 March

A new Sanitaryware Gallery opened. The major new 'Flushed with Pride' gallery opened in March 2002. New galleries opened.

2006

Potteries' Finest Served On A Plate! Gladstone takes part in Stoke-on-Trent's second Ceramics Festival. More details here  https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/potteries-finest-served-on-a-plate-5330688.html

2015

Gladstone's 40th Anniversary - major celebrations laid on with the tag 'Forty-Fied'.

2018

The Festival of Bottle Ovens and POTTERIES BOTTLE OVEN DAY established. Every August 29th - the date in 1978 when a Potteries bottle oven was kindled for the very last time.

2021 December 14th

Three of the original 'engineering volunteers' celebrated a continuous run of 50 years of volunteering at the Gladstone site.


Gladstone Pottery Museum 1971-2021
Paul Niblett, Brian Colclough, and Fred Greasley
Engineering Volunteers for 50 years


2022 January 

Stoke-on-Trent City Council announced major restructuring in its museum service. All the staff positions at Gladstone Pottery Museum were 'deleted'.


2022 April

No full-time staff remain at Gladstone. 


2022 November

Residents' 'disgust' as Gladstone Pottery Museum shuts down for winter. Closed till April 2023.  From August to October this 2022 the museum closed sporadically to allow filming for The Great Pottery Throw Down to take place - meaning that some weeks it was only open on one day.


Pottery Throw Down judge Keith Brymer Jones hits out at Gladstone closure
The Great Pottery Throw Down judge says the decision to shut while the TV show airs is 'strange and perplexing'.


2023 January

Headline - "Part-time worker wanted for two city museums.  "Stoke-on-Trent City Council is looking for a part-time member of staff to work at Gladstone Pottery Museum and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery - in a wide-ranging role. The 'visitor experience assistant' post will see the successful candidate split their 18.5-hour working week across the two museum sites in Longton and Hanley. The employee will be expected to tackle tasks including security, cleaning, serving in the café, maintenance, sales and more for a salary of £10,592 to £11,180. 

The recruitment comes after around a dozen jobs were axed at Gladstone last year as part of controversial council budget cuts." 

Gladstone Pottery Museum from the air
Photo: Courtesy The Sentinel, SOTLIVE


Less than 12 months after the city council deleted all of the roles
at Gladstone Pottery Museum they started recruiting.


2023 February

Gladstone puts on two special events - a Wedding Fair and a Ceramic Makers market.




 

2024 August 20th

The 50th Anniversary of the Preview Season when the museum was opened to the general public for the first time.