Stoneware Bottle - H Kennedy

Barrowfield pottery was founded in 1866 by Henry Kennedy, an Irish native, in the Camlachie district of the east of Glasgow, close to Campbellfield and Mount Blue potteries – attractive to potters due to the Camlachie clay beds. Arnold Fleming claims that Kennedy was trained at Caledonian pottery, Garngadhill, and the census records that Kennedy and his wife were living in nearby Glebe Street in 1861. Fortunately, an extensive article in the Mercantile Age in May 1880 provides a detailed account of the pottery’s development.

It seems that Kennedy started out with just the one kiln but by 1871 was employing forty men and six boys and such was the success of the enterprise that by the time of the visit by Mercantile Age in 1880, no less than eight kilns were in operation and a year later one hundred and eighteen were recorded as employed.