Tilemania - collecting and copying 'Persian' tiles in the late nineteenth-century

The widespread use of glazed wall-tiles in England in the second half of the nineteenth century came out of the industrialization of the manufacturing process together with a new awareness of the importance of sanitation. From the 1870s onwards  tiles were used for the interiors of hospitals, railway stations and ships (the hammam of the Titanic was lined with  ‘Iznik’  tiles) , as well as  smoking rooms in houses and pubs.

Several ceramic manufacturers were in the vanguard of this change of taste, producing hundreds of different patterns to satisfy the new ‘tile mania’. This lecture will focus on the designs of  Minton Hollins & Co.,  the Pilkington Tile and Pottery Company and the craftsman-designer William de Morgan, three companies that produced so-called ‘Persian’ tiles.

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