The ball clay industry shaped two English regions for centuries, yet the voices of the workers who dug and fired it have been largely lost. This research addresses a gap in cultural memory. Existing histories of Devon’s ball clay mines and Staffordshire’s Potteries focus on famous industrialists like Josiah Wedgwood. The project will instead recover the experiences of the generations of labourers and communities who lived through the industry’s boom-and-bust cycles, using archival material and community consultation. If successful, the work will produce interpretive materials and “critical tabulations” that give these communities a more inclusive, less triumphal narrative of their own past. This matters because post-industrial decline in both regions has left deep economic and psychological scars. Reclaiming these hidden stories could help residents understand their present circumstances and inform how former industrial sites are managed for environmental and human well-being. The project is primarily cultural and historical, not aimed at changing manufacturing or infrastructure directly.
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"Reclaiming cultural memory provides strength, sustenance and vision" (Bissell, E. 2019) In Devon, around 45 million years ago, a sequence of geological conditions led to the formation of 'ball clay'; a rare clay with unique qualities that would come to play a major role in the explosion of the ceramics manufacturing industries in the Potteries of Staffordshire. Rebecca Nunes (Project Lead [P.I]) and Sophy Rickett (Co-Lead [C.I]) seek funding to undertake novel evaluative and practice-based research to understand what these developments meant to the local communities affected, and to unearth and amplify some of the key connections that the resulting trading relationships would facilitate in both Stoke-on-Trent and South Devon. The funding will enable exploration of a wide range of archival material and consultation with the communities whose lives have been shaped, directly or indirectly by the clay. This initial research represents the first stage of an ambitious second phase in which both researchers will draw on the new knowledge and insights unearthed during phase one, towards the creation of widely accessible interpretive materials to diverse audiences, and "critical tabulations" (Rosner, D.K. 2020), contributing in their totality to the reclamation of cultural memory for these communities. 'Ball clay' is a sedimentary clay, found in parts of the world with ancient riverbeds or deltas. One of the rarest forms of clay, and in the UK found only in Devon and Dorset, ball clay is highly valued in the ceramics industry. Used to make pottery since Roman times, and having been mined commercially since the C16th, South Devon's ball clay reserves remain a viable economic concern, employing hundreds of people in the region. The industry gathered momentum in 1771 when Josiah Wedgwood procured his first consignment of ball clay, thus establishing a trading partnership between South Devon and Staffordshire's Potteries which would continue until the 1980s. For generations, clay extraction in Devon and ceramics manufacture in Staffordshire were central to each economy, providing a major source of employment for generations, a significant factor in the formation of cultural identity, and a major contributor to deprivation in the wake of post-industrial decline. Nunes and Rickett contend that narratives promoting the significance of the clay industry overly emphasize the legacies of leading industrialists such as Wedgwood and Spode in Staffordshire, and the Templar family in Devon. The research will support the reclamation of more inclusive and less triumphal narratives pertaining to the experience and testimony of generations of workers and communities that have been integral to, and deeply impacted by the industrial "boom-& bust-times" of the industry. The story of Devon's ball clay connects the ancient uplands of Dartmoor, via feats of engineering and innovation in transport, labour and maritime trade, to the Midlands and Staffordshire. "Following the clay" through practice-based research will illuminate narratives of the "winners" and "losers" of indistrialization and signpost the formulation of new cultural imaginaries for the reparation of environmental and human well-being at these sites and in these communities.
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