Staffordshire Ambassadors Unite for Stoke-on-Trent's Centenary and Ceramics Biennial
- Oct 16
- 3 min read
This year, 2025, the city of Stoke-on-Trent is celebrating one hundred years of six pottery towns being designated as a city. In 1925, Stoke, Hanley, Fenton, Burslem, Tunstall, and Longton did not meet the criteria to receive city status. What Stoke did have was world-renowned for being a centre of ceramic excellence, and if you want to see the lasting impact of this, a visit to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley will leave you marvelling at Stoke's homegrown expertise.
It's been described as an accident of nature and nurture that Stoke became the epitome of innovation and business, rich in the clay needed to create ceramics and a group of like-minded people committed to pushing boundaries to create beauty and function literally from the earth they stood upon.
Stoke's first application for city status was denied by the Home Office because the population was below the 300,000 required to receive the accolade. This was not being sought to bring a financial reward or legal advantage but to recognise this tiny area for its contribution to the country's economic and societal prosperity. The benefit would boost morale and pride not only locally but, in Stoke's case, across the world.
Stoke did not accept the Home Office's decision, and the local government made a direct appeal to King George V to override the Home Office's ruling. On June 5, 1925, King George V visited Stoke-on-Trent and formally announced the area's elevation to city status. He recognised what the criteria set out in 1907 were unable to, and we are grateful for his intervention.
Don't be fooled into thinking that ceramics are just cups and saucers; it's the toilet you sit on, the tiles on your walls, and now even the components in your mobile phones.
Ceramics are a big deal that we take for granted. The automotive, construction, medical, and even aerospace industries rely on ceramics to perform high-quality, even crucial activities—all from the dirt beneath your feet.
Stoke-on-Trent is enjoying something of a ceramics renaissance with Emma Bridgewater and The Great Pottery Throw Down TV show drawing people in droves towards the love of potteries they both share. People like Hannah Ault DL, of the We Are Staffordshire Place Board and Valentine Clays, and Clare Wood, of the British Ceramics Biennial, are leading the way in celebrating ceramics for modern times.
Stoke-on-Trent's renaissance is not just ceramics either, with people like Paul Williams of the We Are Staffordshire Place Board and Stoke Creates Board, Jon Rouse CBE of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and Tim Heatley of Capital&Centric - who worked magic in transforming the Goods Yard.
The can-do attitude of the small but mighty team who are organizers of the centenary celebrations is also helping the rejuvenation of my hometown's attitude about itself and how the wider world views the city. That not-taking-no-for-an-answer attitude I've always associated with fellow Stokies is banding together as a force for good, and it's joyful to see.
Growing up, I recall my maternal grandmother worked at a brick factory, my paternal grandmother made bricks for gas fires, my mother operated a Murray Curvex, my aunt was a hand paintress for Royal Doulton, my uncle made bathroom tiles, and my best friend's dad made toilets. It's in the blood; you can always tell potteries people of a certain age because when faced with a nice cup or saucer, they will always turn it over. Gone are the days when, whenever you did that, you'd know someone from the factory or where it was, but the product and the place, the city of Stoke-on-Trent, stand taller in our memories.
The Staffordshire Ambassadors Program and British Ceramics Biennial are great examples of what can happen when people share a common vision in the same way as those plucky six towns did a hundred years ago.
Let's raise a ceramic mug to 100 years of not taking no for an answer and the next 100 years of innovation and pluck.
An event in pictures
Staffordshire Ambassadors Unite for Stoke-on-Trent's Centenary and Ceramics Biennial - created 20.10.25
