William Henry Pardoe

Mathews trade directory lists William Henry Pardoe in Avon Street for 1847-1866.  He is described as a pipemaker, sometimes also as a potter, or brown ware garden pot manufacturer.  The last two entries show the firm as Charles and George Pardoe, Henry and Charles Pardoe are also listed in 1863.   They made tobacco pipes, stoneware, and brown ware garden pots.  An insurance policy for 1847 mentions a brown stoneware kiln, small glazing kiln, and a stove for pipe manufacturing.  An advertisement from the 1858 directory is reproduced above.  Kelly's directory for 1861 lists Charles Pardoe working with a Henry Pardoe in Avon Street, the same directory for 1863 lists C & G Pardoe in Avon Street, which may be a mistake for Henry.  Henry Allan Pardoe was the son of Thomas Pardoe, the china painter.  On 20th November 1849 he was living in Easton Terrace, St Philips.  He also married Ann George the daughter of William George, a glass-cutter, at Holy Trinity Church, St Philips, in 1849.  The 1851 census lists Henry Pardoe (warehouse man) and his wife Ann at the Pipe factory in Avon Street.  There is also a journeyman potter called Henry Pardoe lodging in Cheese Lane (a continuance of Avon Street) in 1851, he may be Henry Allan.  Henry Allan was in Nantgarw in 1841 (pipe maker).  For 1861, 1871, and 1881 he seems to have been in Glamorgan (Aberdare, Llanwonno); and may have died in Pontypridd, aged 82, in 1892.  A Charles Pardoe was a dealer at Taffs Wwll Eglwysilan in 1841; a commercial traveller at Nantgarw in 1851; an earthenware commercial traveller at Taffs Well or Hill Eglysilan in 1861; and an ironmonger at 41 Commercial Street, Mountain Ash in 1871.

The Nantgarw pottery was originally established in 1813 by William Billingsley, the celebrated potter and painter, and his son-in-law, Samuel Walker, for the purpose of producing high quality porcelain.  It closed within a year, but Billingsley and Walker re-opened it in 1817, continuing production until 1819 when financial difficulties forced them to sell to William Weston Young, who continued porcelain production untill closing the works in 1822.  One of the people who worked there was the china painter Thomas Pardoe.

William Henry Pardoe originated in Derby, and was a son of Thomas Pardoe.  He re-opened the site for the manufacture of clay pipes and earthenware in 1832, or possibly 1828, and continued until his death in 1867.  After that his widow Mary continued, and then from 1871 to 1895, by his sons under the name the Pardoe Brothers, one of the younger sons, Percival (baptized 1851) continued until final closure in 1921.  The pottery made red or brown earthenware from local clay for items such as stoneware bottles, jugs, butter-pots, cheese and bread pans, foot and carriage warmers, snuff-jars, hunting jugs ans mugs, tobacco-jars, jugs, and other goods; tobacco-pipes (the equal of Broseley); garden pots, puncheons, etc.

The Nantgarw site is now the Nantgarw Chinaworks Museum.

Sources

Mathews Trade Directories (BRL).

Bristol Clay Pipemakers.  Roger Price, Reg and Philomena Jackson.  1979.

The Dismantling of Kiln II, Nantgarw China, Pottery and Pipe Works.  Mid Glamorgan.  1995.  Post-Medieval Archaeology, Volume 31 (1997).