Jiggering a dish in a pottery factory

Description:Pottery factory interior showing a man making a dish using a jigger. flat piece of clay is placed on the rotating mould and a levered profile tool is brought down upon it.

The batter on the right of the machine creates the flat pieces of clay to be placed on the moulds.

Taken at Meakin's Ltd., Stoke-on-Trent.

The mould shapes the eating surface of the dish as the profile tool shapes the reverse.

Terminology

The terms jolleying and jiggering are often used to describe the same thing.

Jolleying is the older of the two terms and has regularly been used to describe any pottery making using rotating moulds and profile tools.

However, large sections of the pottery industry have made distinctions between the two terms. These seem dependant on whether hollow or flat ware is being made.

Jolleying - where the profile tool forms the using side of the ware, such as the inner suface of a cup.

Jiggering - where the mould forms the using side of the ware, such as the upper surface of plates and saucers.

Taken from the Gladstone Pottery Museum Photographic Collection.

This photograph is part of the collections at Stoke-on-Trent Museums.