The Vine Pottery was founded by Lawrence Arthur Birks and Charles Frederick Goodfellow in Stoke-upon-Trent in 1894. Beginning with small scale production of fine bone china tableware, the company fortunes were transformed in 1901 when Edmund G. Reuter was employed as designer. He introduced an ivory porcelain with middle eastern decoration known as 'Persindo Porcelain'. Many new designers were then attracted to the firm resulting in numerous international awards and even royal patronage from Queen Mary. Troubled times in the 1920s after the National Strike and the Wall Street Crash led ultimately to closure in 1934. AUTHOR: Peter Goodfellow has spent many years indulging his passion for ceramic research. Family-history foraging has revealed his links to the founders of the Vine Pottery and other master potters of the early eighteenth century. SELLING POINTS: First book devoted to the Vine Potteries, covering 40 years and four generations of the Birks family and their involvement in the modelling, sculpting and artistry for the production of pottery and porcelain in North Staffordshire Highlights the high profile designers employed by the Vine Potteries, illustrating an amazing contribution by some of the most gifted ceramic artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 530 colour & 43 b/w illustrations