William Howson Taylor

William Howson Taylor (1876-1935) was the son of Edward R. Taylor and a student at the Birmingham Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. Together with his father, he founded the Ruskin Pottery in 1904. W.H. Taylor designed the shapes and developed the glazes. The pottery produced was notable for the innovative glazes used on a range of brightly coloured pots, vases, buttons, bowls, tea services and jewellery. These glazes included misty soufflé, 'crystalline' effects, lustre glazes resembling metallic finishes, and the most highly regarded of all, “sang de boeuf” (or oxblood), which produced a blood red effect. The 'sang de boeuf' glazes were created using reduction of copper and iron oxides at high temperature. W.H. Taylor continued operating the pottery after his father's death in 1911. In 1933 pottery production ceased, but Taylor continued glazing ware that had already been made, finishing up just a few months before his death in 1935.