Obviously this is a salt glaze bottle, with some unknown purpose. It was incised near the bottom with the following mark:

While not terribly legible in the illustration, it clearly reads: Doulton Lambeth.

Doulton? As in "Royal" Doulton? Fine china hellishly expensive decorative trinket and Toby mugs Doulton?

Well this amateur historical sleuth just could NOT leave this sit unexplored. So off into cyberspace I travelled, and sure enough, there was a wealth of information on Royal Doulton and its' early, and much humbler, origins. However, as is the case with internet research, caution has to be exercised as there is a great deal of misinformation, misleading information, conflicting information, unsubstantaited rumour, myth, legend, erroneous 'facts' and outright lies.

Even in the history of the development and growth of a company as prestigious as Royal Doulton there were some serious, if interesting and sometimes amusing, discrepancies discovered. I have tried to include as many variations to the story as possible and leave it to the reader to decide on the ultimate 'truth'.

Again, as with the original article on Holloway, there is little to no original scholarship contained here and a list of some of the many, many websites visited and from which information was drawn is included at the end of this article. All credit goes to the myriad of other authors and scholars from whom I have shamelessly purloined material.

One of the first items I decided to include was this map of Dickens' London. It struck me that it might be helpful for the reader to be able to have some referent as they move through the unfamiliar locations of Victorian London.

You might wonder why "Dickens' London"........be patient, the confusion will be cleared up. There is a tenuous link.

John Dwight Doulton, sometimes called the 'father of English pottery', took out patents in 1671 for stoneware of the type previously imported from Cologne. He set up a pottery in Fulham which was just a small village near London. Presumably this is an ancestor of the figure which is central to the story of our bottle if one notes the same surname and the location of the pottery.


In the early 19th Century, John Doulton (1793 - 1873) served as an apprentice at London's Fulham Pottery, one of the most important early commercial potteries in England. Becoming an accomplished potter known
for his hard work and innovation in 1812 (by one report) he found employment at a small pottery business in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth (see Map I - 5) owned by Martha Jones who had inherited it from her late husband.
Another account states that in "1815 John Daulton (sic) left the Fulham pottery and invested his life savings of 100 pounds in a small pottery in Vauxhall Walk. In 1820 he and John Watts took over ownership of the Vauxhall Walk pottery."

The year 1815 is agreed upon in the various accounts of how John Doulton became a partner in this same firm.

By another account, on the eve of Waterloo, he was taken into partnership by the widow Jones, along with her foreman, John Watts and the firm became known as Jones, Watts and Doulton.

However, by yet another account, the widow Jones' son ran 'afoul of the law and left England in a bit of a hurry', at which time she sold her interest to "Doulton and his partner John Watts."

Yet another account relates that Doulton 'founded' his first pottery, The Lambeth Pottery, (Doulton Lambeth) (see map G - 8) in 1815 whose main products were ceramic busts, figurines, canning jars, tableware and salt glazed utilitarian items and began experimenting with decorative pottery after John Watts retired in 1854 when the company changed its' name to Doulton and Co.
(Oddly enough a different account dates the name change to 1853. However as you will read shortly, John's sons had something to do with this. Maybe)

Regardless of the ambiguity of the origin, Doulton and Watts produced a line of stoneware bottles, jars, tobacco containers, match stands, butter dishes and utilitarian products in addition to some traditional brown tobies.

The earliest recorded figurative work produced by his company is attributed to John Doulton himself who made a flask depicting Queen Caroline around 1820.

Now, it IS possible that Dickens (1812 - 1870) did glue labels on Doulton boot black bottles. In fact IF the dates were more compatible and IF our bottle is a blacking bottle, it could be speculated that Dickens glued a label on OUR bottle. However to claim either is a bit of stretch of the imagination, and fact.

Dickens was born the second child of a pay clerk in the Naval Pay Office, and the family moved to Camden Town (see Map A-3) in 1822, so Doulton was making 'utilitarian' ware by the point. Six more children were born to the Dickens clan after Charles, and as his father seemed to be "highly skilled in amassing debts", he was subsequently arrested in 1823 (or 1824 depending on whose account you read) for debt and incarcerated at Marshalsea Prison. (Not to be found on the map, so save your time looking)

Not only was the father jailed, but so was his wife and all his children except Charles (or all except Charles and his sister Fanny who was enrolled in a school of music, depending on the account). In any event, this "removed him (Charles) from school and their middle class more-or-less genteel environment, made him the agent for the family and forced him to work at Warren's Shoe Blacking factory and warehouse near Charing Cross (see Map E-5), from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, pasting labels on bottles of polish for 6 shillings a week, walking 3 miles each way to a boarding house in Camden Town." (see Map A-3).

Now it is remotely possible that the bottles upon which he was gluing labels were made by Doulton, but as you will find later in this tale, the "Doulton Lambeth" incised marking was not used until 1854, so he was 30 years too early for him to have glued a label on our particular bottle.

Many volumes have been written by erudite scholars on the effect that this experience has on Dickens' later writings, however we have strayed far enough from our one, lonely bottle of indeterminate purpose.

By 1826 the company, now trading as Doulton and Watts, moved to larger premises in Lambeth Walk (see Map G-7)which had potential for expansion.

Awareness of public health increased in the 1830's and 1840's and the demand for glazed pipes to replace the porous brick lined sewers, grew at a dramatic rate. As early at 1827 Doulton was in the water treatment business, using various earth and clay materials in the first Doulton water filters.

The opportunity to establish a fiscally strong company occurred when a cholera epidemic tore through London in 1832. The horrible sanitation conditions in London that developed as a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution added to the spread of disease. "Offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination and destructive to the health" was how London drinking water, which was drawn from the Thames River, was described in a pamphlet published in 1827. The Thames was heavily contaminated with raw sewage, and cholera and typhoid epidemics were common. Doulton saw the opportunity and in 1846 built a pipe factory on what was to become the Albert Embankment. The demand for Doulton's pipes and other sanitary ware was tremendous and within three years Doulton founded factories in Dudley and St Helens to meet the need.

Doulton and Watts played a major role in the production of water and drain pipes in London, becoming a leading producer of sanitary ware in the country. By the time Victoria came to the throne, Doulton was established as a manufacturer of domestic and industrial products which put the business ahead of its' competition.
During this time as well the demand for electrical insulators could only be met by Lambeth Works which had the technical skills available and Doulton was soon providing these to the railways, and the Post Office Telegraphic service.

The year 1835 was an eventful year for the company.