Antiques: Big in Japan! (From Free Press Series)

Antiques: Big in Japan!

It takes only minutes nowadays to drive between Usk and Pontypool. But in the mid 18th century, it was more than just the miles and means of transport which separated the two towns...

They were rivals over the production of what, in modern parlance, was a 'must have' household item of the era - Japanware.

The word describes the decorated, lacquered tinplate which was manufactured not in the Oriental location its name implies, but right here in Monmouthshire.

It was in Pontypool that the first commercial production of tinplate began in the late 1600s. Some 30 years later, factory employees Thomas Allgood and his son Edward invented a novel way of lacquering decorative metal shapes. Originally, 'japanning' referred to the varnishing and lacquering of furniture imported into Britain from the Far East. Its popularity must have prompted the Allgoods to seek a means of similarly enhancing tinplate and ironplate - and Pontypool Japanware was born.

Trays and tea urns, caddies and candlesticks, dishes, snuff boxes...varnished and embellished with hand-painted flowers, figures, landscapes, often Chinese in style. Pricey by the standards of the day, they were items unlikely to feature beyond the homes of the relatively wealthy.

The Allgood family also prospered, keeping the manufacturing process a secret by employing only relatives to make Pontypool Japanware. But a family row, probably between Thomas's grandsons, led to a breakaway rival factory being established in Usk around 1763.

Meanwhile factories in the Midlands started making near or exact copies of the Monmouthshire originals. Like that from Usk, it was all dubbed 'Pontypool' Japanware, irrespective of the source. Some of the finest local examples were made between 1770 and 1800.

Then as now, technology moves on and tastes change. The introduction of electro-plating led to a decline in popularity, and by the late 19th century, production had ceased completely. In an ironic twist of fate, the Pontypool factory was the first to go in 1822, followed some four decades later by its Usk rival, and then ultimately by those in England.