The Famous Manufactories
- The Wise Family
The Wise family began their business in the middle of the eighteenth century and successive generations produced all types of work using the traditional methods of turnery and scorched inlay. The firm was introduced to stickware and tessellated mosaic by an apprentice of the Burrows family.
The Burrows Family
Along with the Wise family the Burrows family were one of the earliest specialists in the art. It was James Burrows who invented the tessellated mosaic technique in 1820 and the family was most active in the first half of the eighteenth century enjoying the patronage of the young Princess Victoria. Most of the brothers had either died or retired by 1850.
Fenner
Established in 1790, the firm of Fenner & Company produced turnery and painted wares as well as wares inlaid with French and English prints. When James Burrows invented the tessellated mosaic, Fenner bought his needs from the Burrows firm not making his own tessera until later. The firm closed in 1840 when William Fenner retired.
Nye
James Nye and his son Edmund took over the old Fenner premises on Mount Ephraim when William Fenner, their partner, retired. In 1836 James and Edmund were joined by a former apprentice of Wise called Thomas Barton who was an excellent designer and creator of tessellated mosaic work. He rapidly became the top designer at Nye’s and was made a partner. It was Barton who produced the fine work exhibited by Nye at the Great Exhibition of 1851. A lot of pieces made by Edmund Nye bear a label to that effect so much of his work is recognizable.
- Barton
Thomas Barton is the most widely known manufacturer of Tunbridge Ware because his work is instantly recognizable by the woods used. He favored coromandel and ebony as background and used a good deal of oak that had been stained green by the fungus Chlorosplenium aeruginascens. A great deal of his work was also labeled either in his own right or “Formerly of Nye” He took over the Nye workshop shortly before the death of Edmund. Such was the high esteem in which Barton was held by Nye that the latter sold everything to him for £400. Barton was a true craftsman who took immense pride in his work and this brought him hard earned recognition. In 1864 he was awarded first prize in the First Class for skilled manufacture at the Tunbridge Wells Industrial Exhibition. He died in 1903 and the business ceased to be.
Hollamby
Another apprentice of the Burrows family, Henry Hollamby set up his own business in 1842. By about 1880 he was the largest manufacturer in Tunbridge Wells employing as many as forty people. He provided the wholesale and export markets and was noted for his large views of buildings such as Herstmonceux Castle and Shakespeare’s Birthplace. His premises were destroyed by fire in 1891 and Hollamby sold whatever he could salvage.
Boyce, Brown & Kemp
This firm came into being in 1873 when Thomas Boyce and James Brown, who had worked together for some years, joined in partnership with John Kemp. They introduced mechanization to the production of Tunbridge Ware claiming to be the only firm to use the steam engine. Hollamby supplied the firm with design blocks of views such as Tunbridge castle. When Hollamby closed after the fire at his manufactory it was Boyce, Brown & Kemp who bought the remaining stock. When Thomas Barton died in 1903 they became the only manufacturers of Tunbridge Ware. A John Ellis during the First World War bought the firm.
Tunbridge Wells Manufacturing Company
In 1923 Boyce, Brown & Kemp sold out to David King who renamed it the Tunbridge Wells Manufacturing Company Limited. King had ambitions to turn the making of Tunbridge Ware into a national industry that would appeal to the huge export market. Unfortunately, the dream was not realized mainly because of King’s unpopularity among the old hands and the firm closed in 1926 bringing to an end three hundred years of the art.
