HISTORY OF THE HALL CHINA COMPANY
EAST LIVERPOOL, OHIO
This article is reprinted from The Bulletin of The American Ceramic Society, Vol. 24, No. 8, August 15, 1945. It presents the history of the Hall China Company from its formation through World War II. Thanks to Everson Hall, Hall China historian, who made the article available for publication here. I really enjoy all of the pottery jargon in this article, like glost kiln, silk lawns, and jiggerman's wheel!
On the afternoon of July 7, 1903, the former partners in
the inoperative East Liverpool Potteries Company met in
the home of Robert Hall to settle the affairs and distribute
the physical assets of the Company. Mr. Hall accepted,
as his share, ownership of the plant located on the south-
east corner of East Fourth and Walnut Streets, which had
previously been known as the West, Hardwick and George
Pottery. Thirty-eight days later, on August 14, 1903, he
founded The Hall China Company, East Liverpool, Ohio.
Three oven kilns were fired, and thirty-three potters began
to make bed pans and combinets, the first chinaware to
bear the trade name, Hall China.
The Company, born among the depressing ashes of
failure, arose, not phoenixlike, but feeble and struggling
for the very breath of life. It suffered from lack of capital
and scrambled in stiff competition with more than a score
of other small potteries. What plans Mr. Hall had for its
future, what success he might have made of his unpromising
acquisition, were never to be known. For, before he
had an opportunity to get well under way, he died, in 1904,
the year following the founding of the Company.
Development of Single-Fire Process
Robert Taggart Hall, son of the founder. assumed the
management. Very early in his new job he began to investigate the possibilities of developing a glaze that would stand the heat required for bisque firing, thus making
possible single-fire ware that would be proof against crazing.
He had little to guide him. Ancient history hooks
reputed that a single-fire china had been made during the
Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-164-1) in China, but the lore was
lost, and beyond the encouraging fact that what had been
done could be done again, Mr. Hall had no precedent to
follow His practical experience. and that of his superintendent,
Robert Meakin, made it clear, however, that a
leadless glaze was necessary to the successful development
of the single-fire process, for lead could not stand the temperature
necessary for bisque firing.
From 1903 to 1911, Mr. Hall experimented tirelessly
to develop the single-fire process and struggled to produce,
at a profit, sufficient white ware, such as combinets, bed
pans, mugs, and jugs, to keep the Company in operation.
Dinnerware, added to the line in 1908, was made in small
quantities until 1914, at which time its manufacture :vas
discontinued until much later in the Company's history.
The fact that the Hall kilns kept burning during the
initial years was due largely to the efforts of Francis I.
Simmers, who became associated with Robert Taggart-
Hall soon after the death of the founder. During those
lean days, Mr. Simmers kept the orders coming in and !aid
the groundwork for later developments.
So meager was the Company's income during this early
period that payday for the plant employees was often just
another day of worry and struggle for the management.
Looking backward, it now seems that 1910 was the year of
darkness before the dawn. On Memorial Day of that
year, vandals entered the sliphouse, slashed the engine
belts to ribbons, tore the pug mill apart, and riddled the
silk lawns of the slip sifters, leaving behind them damage
to the extent of $3,000, an almost catastrophic loss. The
vandals, or the motives that impelled them, were never
discovered.
This incident seemed to spur Robert Hail's determination
to produce chinaware by the single-fire process,
Intensified research followed, and early in 1911, Mr. Hall
and Jackson Moore, superintendent, who had succeeded
Mr. Meakin in 1910, were to see the long search crowned
with success.
First Successful Leadless Glaze
The first successful leadless glare, in 1911, was mixed in
a mortar with a pestle, and the quantity was just sufficient
to dip half a mug. The mug was placed in the hottest part
of the kiln, where the temperature was about 2200"F.,
and the result was "Fair," which means that it was good
enough to encourage further efforts. More of the glaze
was prepared and a few bed pans were fired, and again the
results were encouraging rather than successful. Next, it
was decided to load an entire kiln with the glaze-dipped unfired
bisque. The result pointed the way to complete success,
for the pieces in the hottest part of the kiln were al-
most perfect, whereas those in the coolest part were unsatisfactory.
It was obvious that a hotter fire was needed.
so another load was fired at a maintained temperature of
2400 degrees F., and when the kiln door opened, a new era was
ushered in for The Hall China Company.
The ware that came from that kiln in 1911 was strong,
hard, nonporous, and crazeproof. When Francis I. Simmers
examined it, he turned to his partner and said, "Bob,
if you continue to make ware like that. I'll sell so much of
it you'll have to double the plant." Bob Hall did make the
ware, and Ruby Simmers sold it in ever-increasing quantities.
In a few months, production had grown from two dozen
to sixteen dozen pieces a day. and, although this is small
in the light of today's output, it loomed large in comparison
with the starvation years which had preceded it. If the
Company was still a small youngster, it had now definitely
survived and outgrown the vicissitudes of its enfeebled
and precarious infancy.
The team of Robert Taggart Hall to make the ware and
Francis I. Simmers to sell it worked in complete harmony.
From 1911 to 1920, when Mr. Hall succumbed from a heart
attack, the two men held the position of president alternately,
a year at a time. Since the death Mr. Hall, Mr. Simmers has
served continuously as the Company's president.
1914 Brings Opportunities
The year 1914 brought opportunities of which the joint
managers were quick to take advantage. Because
of the war, European potteries, formerly the chief source of sup-
ply for stoneware items such as steam-table insets, coffee-
urn liners. and other vessels used in the preparation and
serving of food, were unable to continue to make or ship
their products to the United States.
A11 available production facilities at Hall were devoted
to the manufacture of casseroles, teapots, coffeepots. coffee-
urn liners, and similar items for the institutional trade.
The war thus gave impetus to the trend toward Hall
China cooking ware that had started in 1911 with the
introduction of the single-fire product.
The more widespread use of Hall China during this period
demonstrated to hundreds of institutional men the
difference between the European ware and Hall single-fire
china. The imported ware was soft, porous, absorbent;
the finish rough. Hall China was smooth, nonabsorbent,
and glistening when new; it was still smooth, nonabsorbent,
and glistening after extended use.
When the war ended, and cheaper importations entered
the country, users of Hall China had learned that it was
less expensive in terms of cost per year and immensely
cheaper in the subtler items of food presentation and customer
satisfaction. Hall China was in the market to stay.
Growth Continues
In 1919, Hall's production facilities were increased
through the purchase of the plant of the Goodwin Pottery
Company at East Sixth and Broadway, and an entirely new line
was introduced-- gold-decorated teapots for the
retail trade. Coincidentally with the introduction of Hall
China gold-decorated teapots, the Company engaged in
a campaign, which has been sustained throughout the
years, to educate the American housewife in the proper
method of brewing tea and the proper pot in which to brew
it. Hail soon became the world's largest manufacturer of
decorated teapots, a position it has consistently maintained,
The Company's sales of institutional cooking ware and
decorated teapots continued to grow, and as they grew,
new executive personnel was engaged. Malcolm W.
Thompson, who joined the Company in 1930, is now treas-
urer and general manager. William J. Hocking started in
1921 and is today the Company's purchasing agent. Joseph R.
Thompson, who became a member in 1925, is now
secretary and sales manager. Robert H. Simmers joined
in 1924 and has been vice-president since 1940. The Company's
engineering and design staff was also enlarged and
has been regularly augmented during the course of the
years, and the policy of continuing research pursued by
this staff, headed by L. H. Brown, has been largely responsible
for the successful development of a wide variety of underglaze
colors, the series of design innovations that were issued by Hall
before the present war, and the many advancements in manufacturing
methods that have contributed to maintenance of high quality In finished ware.
In 1927, a third plant was opened and its facilities were
used exclusively to produce a new line-soda-fountain
jars. another new line was introduced during the following year--
decorated cooking china, distributed through
retail-trade channels.
New Factory
Success brings its problems as well as its triumphs.
Consequently, In 1919, the Hall management. realizing
that the Company's growth was destined to exceed the
capacity of its three potteries and that obsolescence of
equipment made imperative the need for new and more
efficient methods and facilities, decided to erect an entirely
new factory and to abandon the three old plants
upon its completion.
Atract of twenty-three acres in the East End became
the site for the building which was first occupied in 1930.
The new factory was 250 feet wide by 680 feet long, and
there there approximately 170,000 square feet of floor
space, all on one floor. The entire door space was open,
and the production layout enabled continuous, progressive
movement of work. Firing equipment in the new factory
consisted of three tunnel kilns-- one open-fire multiburner,
one muffle-fire, and one semimuffle-fire glost kiln. All
were fired with natural gas. The open-fire unit was turned
in when the building was first occupied. The glost kiln
was turned in the following year, and the muffle-fire unit
was placed in operation in 1933.
In 1933, The Hall China Company engaged in the
manufacture of decorated cooking china, teapots, and coffee-
makers. The year 1936 brought further expansion in the
line, when, for the first time since 1911, dinnerware took
shape on the jiggerman's wheel, flowed through glazing,
firing, decorating, and inspection processes to the shipping
floor, and thence to market.
The Company's activities in these fields have necessitated
eight additions to the building and the installation of
four other firing units. The additions, the first of which
was made in 1934 and the last of which was completed in
1941, have provided a total of 385,000 square feet of floor
space. The additional firing equipment consists of a circular
electric kiln and a gas-fired multiburner turned in 1935,
a circular gas-fired glost kiln turned in 1936, and a
return-tray electric decorating kiln installed in 1937.
The war has brought new problems to The Hall China
Company, as it has all other American manufacturers.
Yet it seems that adversity has always been a steppingstone
to greater success at Hall, and those who keep their fingers
on the pulse of the ceramic industry will continue to observe
with keen interest how Hall solves its war and post
war problems.
Backstamp #1 is from Whitmyer's Collector's Encyclopedia of Hall China, page 14. Kiln picture and large backstamp courtesy of the inimitable Steve and Dave.
The Hall China Collectors' Home Page copyright 1998 by Marty Kennedy.
Hall China is a trademark of Hall China Company, East Liverpool, Ohio.