Seaton Pottery

dap wear cheese bell Mrs Milne 1897

The Seaton Pottery site was at the east end of Seaton Place East from 1868 to 1964.  During this time it had three different owners.  It was an industrial pottery, producing household wears, decorative art pottery and flowerpots.

The Gavin’s
Thomas Gavin and James Richie first set up Seaton Pottery in 1868 and ran it for 35 years.
Thomas Gavin died in 1899 and the pottery was left in trust to be run by his two sons and 2 lawyers; Robert Lesley and Kenneth Simpson.  Seaton Pottery under the Gavin’s closed 1903.

Mrs' Gavin 1888 pot - Property of Gavin family

 While the Gavin’s ran the pottery they didn’t use a makers stamp, but a piece of pottery inscribed Mrs Gavin, 1888, is known to be of this time and produced by Thomas's son John for his wife Isabella to celebrate their wedding that November.   This piece of pottery has enabled further pieces to be identified as Seaton Pottery, due to the dab ware and agate pottery techniques. the main distinction of Seaton Pottery is the text which has been produced with heavy triangular serifs and the numbers are distinct in that the top loops of the eight does not join and the fives always appear with the lower arc shape disjointed from the rest of the figure.

It was thought that the same person always engraved these pieces, but it is not know who this person was although it was most likely to have been the hand of Thomas Gavin himself.

Agate wear: is banded wear created by mixing 2 or 3 different coloured clays together and throwing them on a wheel.

Dab wear: Seaton Pottery used 3 different colours green, brown and blue, they were dabbed onto the surface with a balled up cloth then covered with a clear glaze on top.

Clark and Smith
Clark and Smith ran the Seaton pottery from 1904 for less two years.  They came from Denby, Derbyshire.  They did not own the pottery but ran it for Ben Reid and Company Limited, the local florists who had taken over from the Gavin family.  Clark and Smith converted the pottery with new machinery and turned it into an art pottery.  A copy of their accounts details some of the items produced at this time as: flower pots malt dishes, butter dishes, bread pans, jelly jars, Scotch motto wear, hanging flower pots, crimp top vases and crocus pots of the latest designs in terracotta, majolica and various other colours.

They also produced Domestic wear including tea pots, jugs, glazed barrels for food stuffs, vessels for home decoration as well as standard plant pots.  Clark and Smith did have a makers mark, some of these were found during the excavation work in 2002/3.

Rebecca jars
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections

Mills & Son
Potter and previous colleague to the Clark and Smith team; Arthur Mills also came to Aberdeen to work with the Clark and Smith team.  Arthur Mills took over the running of the pottery by October 1905, it was still owned by Ben Reid and Co Ltd.  The pottery produced items similar to the Gavin style, the range was also extended to include fern pots on pedestals, umbrella stands, Rebecca jars and a variety of small fancy and grotesque pieces including crocus pots in the shape of elephants, chimney cans were also produced.  The Rebecca jars were inspired by Greek and Egyptian pottery; these were used often as walking stick or umbrella holders.

pottery items collection display
from Pottery Gazette November 2, 1908

Arthur Mills’s son, who also worked at the pottery, remembers a crippled lady who lived on Seaton Place East made a living from decorating these vases and other items.

In 1915 Arthur's 3rd son Ivor joined his father at the pottery and the name changed to A Mills and Son.  Ivor was familiar with the pottery environment having grown up and played with friends there about. 

Ivor recalls:
"I must have stamped the Mills mark on hundreds of the articles that my father made during the first few years that I worked at Seaton Pottery."

Mills Seaton pottery stamp
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums Collections

There are few examples of the stamps used by Mills and Son, but there are two from this time:
Mills/Aberdeen & Mills/Seaton Potteries/Aberdeen, both very simple press stamps with no border.

Arthur’s brother would help out at the pottery during busy periods making flower pots and kiln furniture and well as tending the kilns.  The Mills workforce was smaller in scale to that of the Gavins or Clark and Smith, who would have had staff specifically for duties such as; throwers, turners, decorators and glazers and kiln men.  The Mills employed two girls for general tasks, after the First WW the work force was increased from 2 or 3 men to 6.

In 1927 Ivor took over the running of the pottery due to his father's ill health.  A year later Arthur died with the pottery passing on to his elder son and heir Leslie Mills, who at the time was working for Aberdeen Corporation Trams.  Within a few months Leslie transferred the rights of the pottery to Ivor.  At this time the health and safety around lead based glazed changed which saw a change in the production at Seaton Pottery, with the output of the pottery was solely for horticultural use with the production of hand thrown flower pot in the spring and build bowls in the autumn.
In 1948 production increased with the introduction of 2 press mould machines, created by a blacksmith in Kittybrewster, Aberdeen, from an illustration from German design in a pottery magazine.

In the 1950s Ivor grew tired of the continual production of flower pots along with the firing and admin that went with it.  His son Stewart joined the pottery establishment? to help out but showed a great aptitude as a potter. The 1950s and 60s saw the demise of the Seaton Pottery due to the introduction of plastic flower pots and mass industrial production techniques.  At this time there was also interest from the council to purchase the site for housing and recreation.  The pottery closed in 1964 with the building leased to Mrs Murray's Cat & Dog home until 1966 when Ivor sold the property to Aberdeen Corporation and the buildings were demolished.

With thanks to Alison Cameron B.Tech (Hons) Bradford, Archaeological Sciences;  MIFA for helping put this page together. Cameron Archaeology