Edward & George Phillips

Edward and George Phillips were the two younger sons of John Phillips, a merchant of Newcastle-under-Lyme an ancient market town adjacent to The Potteries in North Staffordshire.  Edward was 22 and George 20 when they were first recorded as potters in 1822.[i] In that same year Edward married Benedicta Wedgwood.  She was the daughter of Thomas Wedgwood of the Overhouse Works in Burslem, and after her father's death was the ward of his cousin Josiah Wedgwood II. [ii]

The Burslem land tax assessments for 1822 record 2 potteries owned by the Brindley family. One was rented to Stubbs & Kent, the other to Edward and George Phillips along with a house.   The pottery was in Longport, a suburb within the township of Burslem. It grew alongside the wharf of the Trent and Mersey Canal and included several manufactories, an inn and the homes of workers and pottery owners. It was a community well placed for exporting goods to America via Liverpool and most of the neighboring potteries were engaged in the transatlantic trade.[iii]  The brothers made a wide range of pottery including inexpensive plain creamware, blue and green edged ware with a variety of molded edge designs, and transfer-printed ware in many patterns.

Edward must have been particularly enthusiastic about the opportunities to be found in trade with America.  In September 1831, he and his wife and family set out on a journey when, as the local newspaper reports,  Edward Phillips was killed on the road as he and his family were going to the USA.[iv]

This must have been a devastating occurrence; Benedicta was left with four young children and a fifth on the way.  The pottery business continued as Edward & George Phillips until June 1834 when the local newspaper announced the formal ending of the partnership which had continued with Benedicta since Edward’s death[v].  The notice confirmed that the business would be carried on by George Phillips.  In 1833 he had married Emily Irwin Onge, daughter of a Dublin merchant, and they lived close to the factory in a large house where their eight children were born.  George Phillips continued the pottery business, expanding the range as new kinds of pottery became popular with consumers.  But he too died an untimely death, at the age of 45, in June 1847[vi].  In early 1848 his factory and house were auctioned, followed by the sale of his utensils and engravings suitable for the American trade.[vii]. Eventually Mrs. Phillips determined to leave Staffordshire and England behind, she and the children sailed from Liverpool on the ship Moron, to Sydney Australia looking for a new life.[viii]