ARCHIVE UPDATE 27

SAMUEL SOUTH WEBSITE

The Update is proud to announce that the Samuel South & Sons website was launched on 11 October 2000 at the address <www.samuelsouth.btinternet.co.uk>.  It should now be possible to share and exchange the material collected and collated during the research with a wider audience than the limited circulation of the Archive Update allows.  Since the launch there has been a continuing programme of adding material so that even if you have visited the site already further visits would be worthwhile. The main sections of the site are: Articles: This section contains the text of articles that have appeared in archival magazines, more recent contributions to local history societies and from contributors. Update: Future editions of the Update will be published on the site and past issues are gradually being added. Kinship: Check the members of the South family recorded to date and discover their relationship with Joseph South(1) Archive: Images and transcripts of material collected to date. Please could readers ensure that the web address is circulated to those family members connected to the Internet. There have been no requests to withold e-mail addresses, following Update 25, which are given below: Michael Short: m-hshort@thenet.net.nz John Short: short.john@talk21.com Judith Cranefield: cranefld@es.co.nz South Archive: samuelsouth@btinternet.com Tom Doig: TomDoig@aol.com

POTTERIES

Yet more Potteries' photographs. The entrance to Samuel South & Sons in White Hart Lane Potteries office (right mid-ground) canteen (left mid-ground) Part of the drying sheds

SAMUEL SOUTH(1)

A visit has been made to the Local History Archive at Bruce Castle Museum in order to inspect the sales ledger of Samuel South(1) for 1882 - 1885 held by them. At that time his pottery was at Dysons Road, Edmonton, before the move to White Hart Lane in 1886. Together with the bank pass-book described in Update No 22, a ten year period between 1882 - 1892 is now covered. The ledger records the orders from customers, the type and quantities of pots, and the cost. Some of the payments made in settlement are signed "S South" and the remainder of the entries are in the same hand, therefore, the entries were completed by him. He seems to have been a poor speller e.g. "Winchmoor Hill", "Disons Road", "Tomas Green". Some entries are difficult to decipher but some 36 customers were identified mostly in reasonably close proximity to the pottery except for one customer on Chigwell, Essex. A typical entry is that recording sales to [Henry] Cull & [George] Rooke: Date Quantity Size Cost January 1884  . . . 26 35 cast 48 £2-00s-10d . 20 cast L 60 £1-00s-00d 28 40 cast 48 £2-06s-08d 31 80 cast L 60 £4-00s-00d February 1884 . . . 4 50 cast 48 £2-18s-04d 15 50 cast 48 £2-18s-04d March 1884 . . . 1 50 cast L 60 £2-10s-00d . 20 cast 48 £1-03s-04d . 10 cast 48 £0-11s-08d (no date) 25 cast 48 £1-02s-11d The entry on 26 January 1884 for 20 cast of large 60's represents 1200 pots at a cost one pound and the equivalent of the daily output of a "good" potter. There are also examples of the entrepreneurial spirit of Samuel(1). He sold manure (presumably from the horse used to deliver the pots) at 4/- for each "load carted" and the horse and cart was hired out at 9/- per day. NB William Cull, the brother of Henry Cull (see above), was also a nursery owner with whom Jim South started in the nursery industry in 1927 before moving to the Millfield Nursery of H B May in 1931. May also occupied a nursery in Dysons Lane close to the South Pottery and from an initial review of the ledger seems to have been the largest customer. KLB  11/00