Thomas Toft

It is thought that Toft, who may have been of Scandinavian origin, operated in the Burslem district during at least 1671–1689. The Staffordshire potters were at that time known for the excellence of their slipware; a kind of coarse earthenware decorated with a coloured clay and water mixture of cream-like consistency called slip. Sometimes a red slip was trailed on to a lighter background, sometimes vice versa. Black and green slips were also used. According to the common practice of the time, these earthenwares were glazed with a galena lead oxide glaze, giving them their characteristic yellow tinge.

A dish with the Thomas Toft signature.

Designs attributed to Thomas Toft include mermaids, unicorns, pelicans, but also King Charles II and his wife Queen Catherine of Braganza, and numerous coats of arms. A cross-hatched rim was fairly typical of the style. The Toft style, combined with the slip trailing technique, was firmly established in the Staffordshire area by the middle of the seventeenth century. Over thirty signed dishes have been recorded but a few of them may have been made by his son, also called Thomas Toft.

Mermaid charger by Ralph Toft

Charger in the Toft style, with slip-trailed decoration of Charles II in the Boscobel Oak, c. 1685

Very little is known about Toft's life. His father died in 1669. He married Ellena Bucknall on 21 April 1663. Toft died a pauper in 1689 and was buried at Stoke-upon-Trent, now one of the six towns making up the city of Stoke-on-Trent, on 3 December 1689. His wife Ellena died two years later in 1691. They had five children: Matthias (b.1663), John (b.1664), Thomas (1670–1723), James (b.1673) and Cornelius (1677–1728).

Toft became the grandfather to seven children although he did not live long enough to witness any of their births. Two, Maria (1701–1703) and Matthew (b.1698) were the children of James. Whilst Charles (b.1706), Cornelius (b.1703), Edward (1698–1701) and Standley (b.1700) were all the children of Matthew and his wife Dorothy Dickinson (d.1713). Much later, Charles Toft, Sr. (1831-1909) was a leading designer for Mintons, and his son Albert Toft (1862–1949) was a sculptor, whose career was dominated by public commemorative commissions in bronze, especially of Queen Victoria.

Examples of his work can be found in:

Ireland

• National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.

United Kingdom

• Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
• Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.
• Temple Newsam, Leeds.
• Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
• British Museum, London.
• Grosvenor Museum, Chester.
• Yorkshire Museum, York.
• Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

United States

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.
• The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Three tiny fragments of Toft pottery including a shard inscribed '...OFT' were found three feet below ground at the corner of Stafford Street and Trinity Street, Hanley in 1953.[2]

• Haggar, R. G.; W. Mankowitz (1957). The Concise Encyclopaedia of English Pottery and Porcelain.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Toft.

• thepotteries.org profile