Tiles from Sherwin & Cotton
Sherwin & Cotton were one of the greatest decorative
tile makers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries commencing in 1877 and selling up to Johnsons in
1911. One of the most prolific designers especially with its
famed art director George Cartlidge with a vast range of
designs in numerous techniques some of which were exclusive
to themselves. They made many tiles especially for the
fireplace market with a wide range of five-tile panels and
6x12 for panel centrepieces and objéts d'art. Famed for George Cartlidge's 'photographic' tiles they
were true art tile manufacturers, the most often found tiles
in original frames as objects intheir own right rather than
to enhance a larger piece are from the company. They used
many unique processes that others tried to imitate but could
not reach the heights of the company, it was the first
manufacturer to produce barbotine tiles in any quantity. A
great part of the beauty of their wares is their most
brilliant glazes, intensely coloured yet the most
translucent of all the contemporary manufacturers, without
the glazes George Cartlidge's émaux ombrants tiles
would have been as dull as those of other companies. Compare
with other companies embossed figural tiles, tile
specialists like Craven Dunnill, famed manufacturers like
Mintons and Sherwin & Cotton's are unique. The other
companies had to make their tiles more embossed, less
delicate, to utilise the tremblay effect of majolica glazes,
none match those from Sherwin & Cotton. In many ways more arts and crafts than those companies
who have gained such reputation, whilst Morris & Co.'s
tiles were either decorated overglaze so subject to wear and
not really fulfilling a basic requirement of tiles,
durability, or dutch made imports often with copies of
islamic patterns, George Cartlidge as art director both
designed, manufactured and worked with the technologists of
the company to devise the processes to bring his aspirations
to reality. Many inferior tiles are clamed to be by Sherwin &
Cotton, they are all over the internet on eBay and fireplace
sites. One can't really blame most of the vendors because
they looked up the grip pattern in a book and found wrong
information. The book in question is The Decorated Tile by J
& B Austwick, published in 1980 it was the first book
about victorian (and some edwardian) tiles in full colour,
and the first with lots of mistakes. There are 159 entries
in Appendix A Tile Backs and Marks, 159 sounds impressive
but 28 are printed or embossed trade marks or badges, of the
remaining 131 versos 102 are attributed by virtue of bearing
names, initials or trade marks and 3 are classed as
unidentified. That leaves just 26 unnamed versos that are of
genuine help in identifying unmarked tiles, or they should
be but nearly half, twelve to be exact, appear to be at
least to some extent incorrect. Two of those errors are
attributing T & R Boote grip patterns to Sherwin &
Cotton. T & R Boote was a mid-tier manufacturer, the cheapest
of all the best known and large manufacturers as decorating
quality was often not great, the biscuit however was really
good and popular amongst budget and better tile decorators.
Whilst most of the top tile decorators used Minton, Hollins
& Co. and Maw & Co. Boote's blanks were the most
widely used and by decorators of all skill ranges. That
means that two versos, grip patterns, that Austwick
attribute to Sherwin & Cotton could have been used by
just about any low - to mid-tier tile decorator and often
were and very few of them reached the quality of output that
Sherwin & Cotton consistently achieved.
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