Maling pottery was produced in the north east of England for just over two centuries. The name of the pottery derives from the French surname of Malin. The family were Protestant Huguenots who fled their native land in the sixteenth century to escape the threat of religious persecution. They settled in England and prospered in a variety of business enterprises including coal, shipping and timber. Somewhere over the centuries the name was anglicized by the addition of a final letter “g”.

By the 1890s, Maling had decided to go up market. They employed their first in-house designer and imported porcelain from other factories which they decorated and sold on under their own name. Within a few years the quality of Maling ware was such that it was being sold by stores as prestigious as Harrods of London.

A succession of designers was employed to take the pottery from the years of post-Victorian elegance through to Art Deco exuberance. By the 1920s Maling was producing over two hundred new designs a year in a successful attempt to meet the changing tastes of the British public. Many of these designs were from the hand of the father and son team Lucien Emile and Lucien George Boullemier. Both had been recruited from the Staffordshire potteries.

After the war the pottery came into the hands of new owners, the Hoult family, who still own the site today and regularly welcome collectors. Although investment was made, the scale of operations was reduced, with fewer staff having to put up with a downsized working area. In a slow spiral of decline fewer new patterns were introduced and fewer products sold.

Eventually, competition from more modern and streamlined potteries caused Maling to close in 1963. In two centuries it had produced over 16,500 patterns. Items ranged from simple kitchen wares such as pudding basins to highly gilded, lustred and enamelled pieces for display in fashionable homes.

Today an active collectors’ society exists to find and preserve what information still exists on this diverse British pottery.