New website for Rockingham enthusiasts

Rotherham's famous Rockingham Pottery goes global next week thanks to an exciting new website being launched by Rotherham Borough Council.

At 11 am on Monday, June 6, at Clifton Park Museum, Rotherham Museums, Galleries and Heritage is launching a new website dedicated entirely to the Rockingham Pattern Book -  the only one in public hands.

The new website; http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/rockingham will allow people right across the world the unprecedented opportunity to view the entire Rockingham Pattern Book at the click of a mouse.

The new site features all 366 pages of the pattern book, with its beautiful hand-painted designs that were copied by the craftsmen and painters at the Rockingham factory in Swinton. In addition Rockingham collectors will also have the option of searching a wide range of categories to identify specific features or patterns.

The Pattern Book, bought by the authority with the help of Heritage Lottery funding four years ago, is the second of four volumes, and illustrates tea ware pattern numbers 593 to 995, and dessert ware pattern numbers 450 to 696S. In all there are about 650 patterns illustrated on 366 pages.

All the other three Rockingham pattern books are in private hands and so are unavailable to the public. This means the new website will be of particular interest to various groups of people as well as the Rockingham collectors.

The story of the Swinton Pottery and Rockingham Works is an incredible story - one that features passion, innovation, artistic perfection and ultimately business failure.

Rockingham went from a small country pottery to a Royal porcelain manufacturer before going bankrupt. But its legacy now  is some of the most highly-collectable porcelain in the country of which some 1,200 pieces can be found in the Rotherham Borough Council collection.

This popularity mirrors the period when the Pattern Book was in use as Rockingham was one of the most highly regarded manufacturers of porcelain in the country.

Artists, designers and students will be another key audience for the site, as will teachers who can download session plans and all the related handouts and activity sheets related to KS1 and KS2 art and design and local history.

The website also includes other features, such as a 'Made in Swinton' timeline - an overview of the pottery produced in Swinton from 1768 to 1842 and 'A Potted History' - illustrated background history pages telling the fortunes of the Works, the people who worked there and its products.

Other sections include 'Artists in the Pattern Book' that show images of pages from the pattern book that can be associated with named artists, matched to images of pottery that shows their pattern; and a report on how the pattern book was acquired by Rotherham Borough Council.

Coun. Amy Rushworth, Rotherham Borough Council's Cabinet Member for Culture, described the launch as a brilliantly modern way of highlighting a wonderful piece of Rotherham's history.

She added: "Rockingham is very special both to porcelain enthusiasts and to the history of Rotherham. The authority is very proud to be the only public owners of a pattern book in the country and so it is wonderful that the contents of such a marvellous piece of history are now available for all to see on a website."

The launch event will include a presentation on the website for the Friends of Clifton Park Museum; Members of the Rotherham Heritage Association; council staff who were involved in the Rockingham pattern book project, the people who contributed to new web-site and the web designer, Ryan Daniels of Hydra Ltd.