1.
Gladstone Pottery Museum
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It is a grade II* listed building. The museum is located in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and it is also included in one of the regional routes of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. Despite the name of the museum, it is a complex of buildings from two works, the Gladstone and the Roslyn, the protected features include the kilns. A pottery factory first opened on the site in 1787, by 1876 the Wards site had passed into the hands of R Hobson and Co and had been renamed Gladstone, after the politician William Ewart Gladstone. The factory opened as a museum in 1974, the buildings having been saved from demolition in 1970 when the pottery closed, in the 1990s ownership passed to Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The museum has shown its commitment to industrial heritage by functioning as a working pottery, however, production has had to be curtailed for financial reasons and the museum is therefore less of a living museum than it was. As at 2014 the Middleport Pottery in Burslem, which is used for production, is arguably the only working Victorian pottery in the city of Stoke-on-Trent. The clay and ground bone were mixed in the sliphouse, bowls plates and saucers were pressed, jiggered and jolleyed or moulded from the slip. The green china was left to dry in the greenhouse, at the same time the saggars that would hold them in the kiln were made. The bottle oven kiln is protected by an outer hovel, which helps to create an updraught, the biscuit kiln was filled with clay sealed saggars of green flatwares by placers. The doors were bricked up and the firing began, each firing took 14 tons of coal. Fires were lit in the firemouths and baited every four hours, flames rose up inside the kilns and they controlled the temperature of the firing using dampers in the crown. The temperature was gauged by watching the contraction of bullers rings, a kiln would be fired to 1250C. They fired again in the bigger glost kilns- again they are placed in sealed saggars, items separated by kiln furniture such as stints, the table-ware would then be decorated by transfers or by painting and placed in the muffle kiln. The enamel kiln is of different construction- it fired at 700C, the pots were stacked on 7 or 8 levels of clay bats. The door was lined with brick. When the kiln cooled the product was transported in basket and exported to different parts of the country and empire using the canal network, the museum is centred on the Roslyn pottery. It contains two biscuit ovens and two larger glost ovens, in addition are two enamel kilns
2.
Packaging and labeling
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Packaging is the technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, Packaging can be described as a coordinated system of preparing goods for transport, warehousing, logistics, sale, and end use. Packaging contains, protects, preserves, transports, informs, in many countries it is fully integrated into government, business, institutional, industrial, and personal use. Package labeling or labelling is any written, electronic, or graphic communication on the package or on a separate but associated label. The first packages used the materials available at the time, baskets of reeds, wineskins, wooden boxes, pottery vases, ceramic amphorae, wooden barrels, woven bags. Processed materials were used to form packages as they were developed, for example, early glass, the study of old packages is an important aspect of archaeology. The use of tinplate for packaging dates back to the 18th century, by 1697, John Hanbury had a rolling mill at Pontypool for making Pontypoole Plates. The method pioneered there of rolling iron plates by means of cylinders enabled more uniform black plates to be produced than was possible with the practice of hammering. Tinplate boxes first began to be sold from ports in the Bristol Channel in 1725, the tinplate was shipped from Newport, Monmouthshire. By 1805,80,000 boxes were made and 50,000 exported, tobacconists in London began packaging snuff in metal-plated canisters from the 1760s onwards. With the discovery of the importance of airtight containers for food preservation by French inventor Nicholas Appert, after receiving the patent, Durand did not himself follow up with canning food. By 1813, they were producing the first canned goods for the Royal Navy, the progressive improvement in canning stimulated the 1855 invention of the can opener. In 1858, another lever-type opener of a complex shape was patented in the United States by Ezra Warner of Waterbury. Set-up boxes were first used in the 16th century and modern folding cartons date back to 1839, the first corrugated box was produced commercially in 1817 in England. Corrugated paper received a British patent in 1856 and was used as a liner for tall hats, scottish-born Robert Gair invented the pre-cut paperboard box in 1890—flat pieces manufactured in bulk that folded into boxes. Gair discovered that by cutting and creasing in one operation he could make prefabricated paperboard boxes, commercial paper bags were first manufactured in Bristol, England, in 1844, and the American Francis Wolle patented a machine for automated bag-making in 1852. Packaging advancements in the early 20th century included Bakelite closures on bottles, transparent cellophane overwraps and these innovations increased processing efficiency and improved food safety. As additional materials such as aluminum and several types of plastic were developed, they were incorporated into packages to improve performance, in 1952, Michigan State University became the first university in the world to offer a degree in Packaging Engineering
3.
Pottery
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Pottery is the craft of making ceramic material into pots or potterywares using mud. Major types of potterywares include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain, the place where such wares are made by a potter is also called a pottery. Early Neolithic pottery have found in places such as Jomon Japan. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing, however, prior to shaping processes. Kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body, air trapped within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished either by a called a vacuum pug or manually by wedging. Wedging can also produce an even moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, after shaping, it is dried and then fired. Clay ware takes on varying physical characteristics during the making of pottery, at sufficient moisture content, bodies at this stage are in their most plastic form. Leather-hard refers to a body that has been dried partially. At this stage the clay object has approximately 15% moisture content, clay bodies at this stage are very firm and only slightly pliable. Trimming and handle attachment often occurs at the leather-hard state, bone-dry refers to clay bodies when they reach a moisture content at or near 0%. It is now ready to be bisque fired, bisque refers to the clay after the object is shaped to the desired form and fired in the kiln for the first time, known as bisque fired or biscuit fired. This firing changes the body in several ways. Mineral components of the body will undergo chemical changes that will change the colour of the clay. Glaze fired is the stage of some pottery making. A glaze may be applied to the form and the object can be decorated in several ways. After this the object is glazed fired, which causes the material to melt
4.
Kiln
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A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay into pottery, tiles, various industries use rotary kilns for pyroprocessing—to calcinate ores, to calcinate limestone to lime for cement, and to transform many other materials. The word kiln descends from the Old English cylene (/ˈkylene/, which was adapted from the Latin culīna kitchen, cooking-stove, burning-place. During the Middle English Period, the n was not pronounced, as evidenced by kiln having frequently been spelled without the n, Another word, miln, a place where wheat is ground, also had a silent n. Whereas the spelling of miln was changed to mill to match its pronunciation, kiln maintained its spelling, which most likely led to a common mispronunciation, however, there are small bastions where the original pronunciation has endured. Kiln, Mississippi, a town known for its wood drying kilns that once served the timber industry, is still referred to as the Kill by locals. Unwittingly adding the n sound at the end of kiln is due to people being introduced to the word through the language before ever hearing the actual pronunciation. Phonetically, the ln in kiln is categorized as a digraph, from English Words as Spoken and Written for Upper Grades by James A. Bowen 1900, The digraph ln, n silent, occurs in kiln. A fall down the kiln can kill you, Bowen was pointing out the humorous fact that kill and kiln are homophones. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BC, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq. Neolithic kilns were able to produce greater than 900 °C. Ceramics require heat at high temperatures so chemical and physical reactions will occur to permanently alter the unfired body, in the case of pottery, clay materials are shaped, dried and then fired in a kiln. The final characteristics are determined by the composition and preparation of the clay body, after a first firing glazes may be used and the ware is fired a second time to fuse the glaze into the body. A third firing at a lower temperature may be required to fix overglaze decoration, modern kilns often have sophisticated electrical control systems to firing regime, although pyrometric devices are often also used. Clay consists of fine-grained particles, that are weak and porous. Clay is combined with other minerals to create a clay body. Part of the process includes sintering. This heats the clay until the particles partially melt and flow together, creating a strong, single mass, composed of a glassy phase interspersed with pores, through firing, the pores are reduced in size, causing the material to shrink slightly
5.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
6.
Korea
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Korea is a historical state in East Asia, since 1945 divided into two distinct sovereign states, North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest and it is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. Korea emerged as a political entity after centuries of conflict among the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Later Silla divided into three states during the Later Three Kingdoms period. Goryeo, which had succeeded Goguryeo, defeated the two states and united the Korean Peninsula. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo, Goryeo, whose name developed into the modern exonym Korea, was a highly cultured state that created the worlds first metal movable type in 1234. However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, following the Yuan Dynastys collapse, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1388. The first 200 years of Joseon were marked by peace and saw the creation of the Korean alphabet by Sejong the Great in the 14th century. During the later part of the dynasty, however, Koreas isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the Hermit Kingdom, by the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. Despite attempts at modernization by the Korean Empire, in 1910 Korea was annexed by Japan and these circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their incapability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. To date, both continue to compete with each other as the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. Korea is the spelling of Corea, a name attested in English as early as 1614. It is a derived from Cauli, Marco Polos transcription of the Chinese 高麗. This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo or Koryŏ, Goryeos name was a continuation of the earlier Goguryeo or Koguryŏ, the northernmost of the Samguk, which was officially known by the shortened form Goryeo after the 5th-century reign of King Jangsu. The original name was a combination of the go with the name of a local Yemaek tribe. The name Korea is now used in English contexts by both North and South Korea. In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk, the name references the Samhan—Ma, Jin, and Byeon—who preceded the Three Kingdoms in the southern and central end of the peninsula during the 1st centuries BC and AD. It has been linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria
7.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
8.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
