Broadhurst

Broadhurst & Sons was founded by James Broadhurst in approximately 1860 at the Crown Works in Longton. Less than a decade later the pottery moved to the Portland works, initially leased and then purchased from John Aynsley in 1876. James Broadhurst died in 1897, but not before passing the business to his two sons, James and Harry. In 1922 the business was incorporated and Edward Robert Roper became Managing Director. He later became a majority shareholder and by 1933 the Roper family owned the whole business. Give or take a hiatus over the war years where the pottery was requisitioned for wartime purposes, the business remained in the hands of the Roper family, who eventually created Churchill China Ltd and James Broadhurst & Sons Ltd was renamed Churchill Tableware Ltd in 1984.