Charles A. Stone & Sons’ Bristol Pottery, which operated from 1934 to 1956 at Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo gave Brisbane’s Stone’s Corner its name. The pottery was operated by Charles Arthur Stone who trained in Staffordshire, England before establishing his first pottery in 1893 on the site of Abraham James’s former works. Later Stone relocated and renamed his works the Bristol Pottery, after his home town in England. By the 1930s the pottery was supplying much of Queensland’s domestic ware. Following Stone’s death in 1936, his son Roy continued the business and branched out into art pottery.

Brisbane. Born in Bristol 1866, Charles Arthur Stone completed his training at ‘Old Tower Potteries’ in Staffordshire before immigrating to Queensland in 1886. He was employed by James Campbell & Sons to improve the range of product at their recently purchased ‘George Fischer’s Pottery’ in Albion. In 1888-99 Stone worked on domestic pottery for Richard Rogers & Co at their ‘West Moreton Pottery Works’ located in Ipswich. Later in 1893, Stone sort financial assistance from Mr Miles and they opened ‘Miles & Stone Coorparoo Pottery’ at the same premises formerly owned by Abraham James (Coorparoo Pottery, St Leonard’s Road, off Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo). Stone concentrated on manufacturing domestic pottery, bottles, jars, storage containers and demijohns, all of which were Bristol glazed. During this time, Miles and Stone did not use a potters stamp to mark product. By 1896 Miles had left and the works were known as ‘Stone & Co.,’, and Stone formally changed the name to ‘Bristol Pottery’ in 1898 and began using a potters stamp on domestic wares, ‘BRISTOL POTTERY BRISBANE’, slightly altering the design of this mark from 1920-34. Then from 1934-1950 Stone’s son Roy was added to the mark which then read ‘CHAS. A. STONE & SONS BRISTOL POTTERY COORPAROO’. Stone died in 1936 leaving the 30 employees under the management of Roy Stone. Roy expanded the factory the following year purchasing ‘Chelsea Pottery Co. Ltd.,’ under the name of ‘Balmoral Art Pottery’ marking the colourful range of art ware with the potters stamp ‘BALMORAL POTTERY Q’. ‘Bristol Pottery’ continued to operate under the name ‘Charles A. Stone & Sons’ until 1956 and changed their name to ‘Australian Ceramics Pty Ltd.,’ until the late 1960s. (Adapted by Trish Barnard, Senior Curator, Indigenous Studies from Ford, Geoff, ‘Australian Pottery: The first 100 Years’, Salt Glaze Press, Wodonga, 1941, p376-383.