William Edwards and his eponymous bone china tableware business have survived despite their industry being under siege for decades.
Based in Stoke-on-Trent, where bone china was first developed in the 18th century and where, before the Second World War, half of the city’s workforce was employed in pottery factories, William Edwards is flourishing while so many rivals have collapsed because it found and exploited a niche.
“Events like the Queen’s 90th birthday, her Diamond Jubilee or the royal wedding always generate a lot of revenue for the ceramics industry,” Mr Edwards says.
The fact that the company has got this far is partly down to its decision to switch away from retail. Instead, its primary focus is on supplying luxury, bespoke tableware to five-star hospitality clients such as Claridge’s and the Café Royal, as well as to super-rich clients looking for accoutrements for their yachts and private jets.
Mr Edwards, 52, is, first and foremost, a designer. After graduating, he was awarded a scholarship by one of England’s most famous pottery manufacturers, Wedgwood, to study for an MA in ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art, where he worked with tutors including Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, the Scottish sculptor and pioneer of pop art.
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He had always intended to build his own business and, for three years, worked from a converted barn at his Shropshire home, focusing on shape and pattern design, throwing his own pots and hand finishing the patterns printed on them.
Then, in 1993, a struggling printing company gave him the break he needed. “It was while doing some research for one of my German customers that I bumped into a tiny printing business called Ceramic Decals Limited, which was part of a large group which was not doing too well.”
Within 18 months he’d bought CDL, growing it over the next 10 to 15 years into one of the biggest printers in Stoke. “I played into the potters’ hands. I used to do all the design work for free as long as they would buy the print from me. It was quite a novel little business model that worked extremely well.”
At that time, the company’s only product was its print. It would supply its designs on paper to be applied by workers in clients’ own potteries. Those businesses were facing increasing challenges as trade quotas from the Far East were relaxed and formal dining at home fell out of fashion.
As many companies either moved production abroad or went under altogether, Mr Edwards’ business was often left smarting. “Payment has always been a challenge — not knowing whether the people you are supplying are going to go bust.”
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It was time for a new strategy that no longer relied so heavily on UK-based manufacturers. This would mean the factory completing the entire design and decoration process and selling the finished work under its own brand, William Edwards. At the same time, it would concentrate sales at the bespoke, luxury end of the market.
“I work very closely with the clients on the initial stages of the design. I go out and make sketches and take photographs of a venue — something like a ceiling or a wall could be the starting-off point — and bring them back to the factory, where we develop some pattern work based on those ideas.
“For the finished artwork, I like doing it the old-fashioned way, so we use pencils and brushes rather than computers.”
Then comes the technical side, where computer-generated colour separations are produced that are used to make the silk or polyester screens for printing the transfers. Those are then applied by hand to the blank chinaware, imported from the Far East, before it is fired at different temperatures depending on the type of materials that are being used.
Business is going so well that Mr Edwards now wants to build a factory producing his own whiteware. “It will be the first time in decades that a new bone china manufacturing facility has been established in the Potteries and will combine British talent for design with centuries of manufacturing knowledge.”