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Unlocking the Minton Archive Treasure Chest

Zeller, Loren

Guardians of Staffordshire’s Ceramic History

Destined for almost certain liquidation, the valuable Minton Archive was saved by the Art Fund with other donors who jointly raised  £1.56m to purchase it from WWRD on 31 March, 2015.* The Archive was immediately gifted to the Stoke City Archives ensuring that it would forever be conserved and available nationally and internationally for the public to enjoy. The Archive contains a treasure trove of items related to Minton's Ltd from its establishment in 1793 by Thomas Minton until the firm was closed 1990s. The Archive also includes thousands of items from the archives of Royal Doulton (which Minton purchased in 1968) along with all the companies it had been acquired by Royal Doulton; an impressive list of more than twenty companies that contributed to Britain’s success in the ceramics industry.  The list includes such famous names as Adderley, Booth, Davenport, Paragon, Ridgway, Royal Albert, Shelley and more. The Minton Archive is the name given to the whole of this collection.The Archive is now owned, managed and made publicly accessible by Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council Joint Archives Service, who will also loan objects to the Wedgwood Museum and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery for display and exhibition. An important number of Minton’s original copper plates can be found in the Wedgwood Archives.

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