Ford B Pottery (Hoult's Yard)

Maling’s B Ford Pottery works was opened in 1878 to work alongside Maling's Ford Street Pottery (HER ref. 4968). It was thought to be the largest pottery in the country and could produce 1½ million items per month, concentrating on new markets such as sanitary ware. With the two works working together the company was employing over 1000 people at the turn of the century. This mainly female workforce was known locally as "Maling's White Mice" after the white clay dust often found on their shoes. Men were employed for the heavier tasks of preparing raw materials, mixing clay, firing kilns and saggar making. Women were involved in equally strenuous tasks - operating heavy machines, carrying clay and pottery - but mainly in the finishing and decorating of the product, including jolleying, casting, printing, painting and gilding. Most employees started work at 14 straight from school, earnings starting at 5s 9d a week, with the vast majority going on to piecework after they had served an apprenticeship. While the old Ford Street site closed in 1926, the Ford B Works struggled on through to the Second World War and beyond. In 1947 the whole company was sold to Hoults Estates. The name "C.T. Maling & Sons" was retained and under the guidance of Frederick Hoult the firm staged a post-war recovery, only to be undermined by competition from overseas in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It closed in 1963. The Ford B Works was given over to furniture storage and is better known today as "Hoult's Yard". LOCAL LIST