Pottery, for Artists, Craftsmen & Teachers

1926

Storage TP808 CV63

London: Macmillan

The beginning of WWI in 1914 forced an embargo on the importation of Seger or kiln cones from Germany, the only place they were made. Invented by German ceramicist, Hermann Seger, in 1886, these pyrometric devices are placed in the kiln along with the pots to be fired. Each firing could take up to four days. The collapsing of cones indicated that the oven has reached a certain temperature, usually well over 1000 degrees centigrade, and that the pots were ‘done’. Mellor was put in charge of commercially producing the cones for the North Staffordshire Technical College. By 1915 over 200,000 cones had been ordered, and as a consequence Mellor’s salary was increased by £100 a year.