Henry Lowndes (d.1842)

By 1806 Thomas Lowndes began producing salt-glazed stoneware in Petersburg.  He and his family had emigrated from Staffordshire, England in 1805, bringing with them a considerable repertoire of pottery skills.  Unfortunately, very little evidence of Lowndes’ early production has been found.  Much better known are the products of his son, Henry, who took over the operation of the pottery after his father’s death in 1811.  Period newspaper accounts suggest that the Lowndes Pottery produced both earthenware and stoneware, although no surviving examples of the former have been identified.  Much of what is known about the Lowndes stoneware comes from the survival of signed works and the uniquely identifiable brushed cobalt botanical motifs thought to represent the cotton plant.