FYI
A Rockingham Mystery

Rockingham is a type of pottery, generally with a yellow clay body, that is covered in a brown manganese glaze. It was originally developed at the Swinton Pottery, on the estate of the Marquess of Rockingham, in England. James Bennett, along with other early East Liverpool potters, used local clay to manufacture yellow ware and Rockingham.

Many believe that Bennett was the first US potter to make Rockingham. Edwin Atlee Barber, in his classic work “The Pottery and Porcelain of the United States," (1893) credits the Bennett brothers with making the first Rockingham. Yet it’s generally known that Orcutt and Thompson of Poughkeepsie, New York and the Salamander Works of New York City were making Rockingham as early as the 1830s.

Jane Perkins Claney in “Rockingham Ware In American Culture, 1830-1930” (2004) provides an explanation: James Bennett was the first US potter to “call” his brown glazed ware, Rockingham! Others may have produced it first but he was the first to market it as “Rockingham.”

Top Photo: Rockingham bedpan, maker unknown. Permanent exhibit, Museum of Ceramics

Left Photo: Rockingham pitcher, maker unknown.
Permanent Exhibit, Museum of Ceramics