Victorian Staffordshire Pottery Religious Figures: Stories on the Mantelpiece

About Stephen Duckworth

Stephen Duckworth has been collecting Victorian Staffordshire pottery religious figures for 40 years. In Britain he is a member of the English Ceramic Circle (ECC) and Northern Ceramic Society. He has given papers on religious figures and on preacher ceramics published in the ECC Transactions 2012 and 2013. Stephen has had a long association with the Staffordshire Figure Association in the USA. He speaks regularly at its annual meetings and to other heritage ceramic and religious groups. He has researched at depth in the British Library and taken part in a University of London Birkbeck College course on Victorian Homes. He has lived in West London for 50 years. The Staffordshire pottery dealers who traded in nearby Portobello Road and Kensington Church Street were his mentors for early purchases. The founder of Methodism John Wesley is commemorated by far more pottery figures than any other religious celebrity. Stephen Duckworth started his collection with figures of Wesley. As a lifelong Methodist he is now a trustee of one of the UK's major heritage sites John Wesley's Chapel the New Room in Bristol - the oldest Methodist chapel in the world.