Hartshorne family group, c.1887.
Circled is Percy Ewart Hartshorne (1882–1950), youngest son of James Edward Hartshorne, aged about 4.
Image: Roger Edmundson: "Benthall Pottery, Shropshire, and its Salopian Art Pottery” (Journal of the Northern Ceramic Society, 2002), from original image held by the Hartshorne family.
Percy Ewart Hartshorne (1882–1950)
Active at the Benthall Pottery Company: 1925–1930s
Born in Derby 1882, Percy Ewart Hartshorne was the youngest son of James Edward Hartshorne and Hannah Hartshorne. The Hartshorne family was originally from Broseley, but had moved to Derby in the late 1870s where James Edward found work at the Derby Crown Porcelain Works.
The family returned to Broseley after 1883, and in the 1901 census Percy, aged 18, was described as a “Commercial Clerk”. Ten years later, the 1911 census recorded him as a clerk for an ironworks.
In September 1912, Percy married Elsie May Young (b.1889), from Kidderminster, a coachman’s daughter. Soon after he moved to Hadley, where he worked at the Shropshire Iron Company.
In August 1925, after his older brother, James Arthur, left the Benthall Pottery Company, Percy was appointed manager. It was during his time with the company, c.1930, that a trade catalogue was produced, by which time he was employed as a commercial traveller (salesman), like his brother before him (his employment contract is in the Shropshire County Archives).
Percy was a soloist with the Broseley Methodist choir, and played cricket for Broseley Cricket Club, of which he was Secretary. He was landlord of the Town Hall Vaults, Broseley (c.1930–45), and a rating officer for the Borough of Wenlock (1940–49).
In January 1950, he moved to 21 Mill Street, Bridgnorth. He died, aged 67, in Wolverhampton on 11 February 1950, on his way home from watching a Wolverhampton Wanderers FC football match.
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Selected sources
Obituary: Sudden Death of Mr. P.E.Hartshorne, [unrecorded newspaper source], 18 February 1950