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The Pettit Pottery
in Folley Lane, Walthamstow

This page describes the interwoven family relationships between the Cole family and the Pettits, all grounded in pottery. It goes on to explain how the Pettit Pottery was set up and give an overview of its history.

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by the webmaster from family recollections and research

The Pettit/Cole relationship

The Pettits and the Coles were related by marriage. Mary Colley, who married John Cole, was the sister of Ann Colley, who married William Henry Pettit. There were less than two years in age between the sisters, so we can assume that they were close. We know from census and rating records that both the Cole and the Pettit families lived and worked on site together at the Tile Kilns, as did Mary and Ann's father, James Sharp Colley.

How the purchase price was raised

When James Sharp Colley died in 1863, he left £600 (a significant sum in those days) equally between his six children. This provided a nest egg for John and Mary and William and Anne and probably an impetus for both couples to branch out on their own. This was probably exacerbated when, only a month after James Sharp Colley’s death, Anne herself died suddenly of apoplexy (a stroke). She was only 52 years old and, like her father and Daniel and his wife Ann, was buried at Abney Park Cemetery, the local cemetery for the Tile Kilns. Anne's death would probably have given added impetus to widower William and John and Mary to get away from the Tile Kilns where they had lived as a family and brought up their children.

The start of the Pettit Potteries

Precisely where William Pettit went when he left the Tile Kilns is unclear. Anecdotal evidence suggests that he went to set up the Pettit Potteries in Walthamstow, but this was not immediately the case, as the 1871 census for Walthamstow shows that it was John Cole who, no longer at the Tile Kilns and not yet at White Hart Lane, was actually at Walthamstow. He was listed as a pottery proprietor (flower pots), living with his family at Cambrian Cottages, Walthamstow.

In the 1871 census, George Pettit, William's son, was listed as a potter, living with his wife Julia and daughters Clara and Annie at 3 Cambrian Cottages, Walthamstow, next but one to John Cole. William Pettit did appear 10 years later in the 1881 census as a potter with a new wife Louisa. The couple were living in the same Cambrian Cottages block, but now at number 6.

So it seems likely that it was John Cole rather than William or George Pettit who started the potteries at Folley Lane Walthamstow. However, John vacated them for White Hart Lane - later known as just the Cole Pottery - whereupon ownership was taken over by the Pettits. Whether it was a gift or sale, it is impossible to say.

The beginning and end of the Pettit Potteries

According to a newspaper cutting in the Vestry Museum at Walthamstow, the pottery started in 1868 and did well until it closed in 1943 during World War II. All the potteries in the south of England closed during the war because the lights from the kilns would have served as beacons for the German bombers. The Cole Pottery continued trading from stocks, but maybe stocks were lower in the Pettit Pottery.

Family photographs

John and Mary Cole and William and Ann Pettit were a family well after the development of photography, so I hope is that someone with family photos may contact me. I am fortunate to be in touch with four Pettit descendants who have supplied some very interesting material. However, no photos have yet appeared of their Cole cousins.

The large Pettit family on a family picnic c1900s
with a list of Pettit family members, courtesy of Adrian Pettit who writes: My Dad considers this an important photo because everyone in it is related - and he can name them. It is early 1900s and is a picnic party in north Chingford or Epping Forest (my playground) - possibly a jubilee retreat.

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