Table Service

Rachel Toy looks at the history of Ridgway Homemaker tableware

- Rachel Toy

I In the decades after World War Two, a new optimism came to Britain. To help renew the country again after the devastation of war, money was invested in science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts. Young designers were employed to shake things up and a boom in innovative designs for the home soon followed.

This was certainly true in the traditional pottery factories of Staffordshire, as new mass-produced products appeared on the high street, appealing to young couples setting up home for the first time. What you had in your home began to say something about you, and Ridgway Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent was one of the first to spot this trend.

Ridgway first sold its stylish Homemaker tableware range in Woolworths stores in the late 1950s and it became an instant design classic.

The earthenware pieces featured contemporary black-and-white furniture motifs on a background of hand-drawn black lines. These motifs were of aspirational home items such as a Robin Day chair, Gordon Russell sideboard, kidney-shaped coffee tables and atomic plant holders.

The tableware range consisted of plates, cups and saucers, tea and coffee pots, milk jugs, bowls, tureens, gravy boats and cruet sets. Some of the rarer original Homemaker items such as the Cadenza-shaped coffee pot can sell for up to £300 today, with a regular dinner plate in the region of £15-£20.