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| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR0272 | | TITLE: | Medalta Potteries Limited fonds | | CREATOR: | Medalta Potteries | | DATE RANGE: | 1911-1956 | | EXTENT: | 4.06 m of textual records. -- 20 blueprints. -- 3 maps | | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Medalta Potteries Limited (Ltd.) was incorporated under The Companies Act as The Medalta Stoneware Limited on December 13, 1915 in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Medalta Stoneware Ltd. had at least two shareholders, R.R. Evans and J.S. Card, and purchased the assets of a company that had been liquidated in 1914 called the Medicine Hat Pottery Company. Medalta Stoneware Ltd. went into production in May 1916 and was superintended by W. Clark, who had also been in charge of the Medicine Hat Pottery Company. The pottery began with a work force of 12 people in 1916 and grew to a work force of about 80 to 120 people by the end of the 1920s. In 1921 Medalta Stoneware Ltd. became the first Western Canadian firm to ship secondary manufactured goods to Eastern Canada and its stoneware eventually replaced stoneware coming from the United States. Its slogan at the time was "Canadian-made Stoneware from Canadian Clay, made by Canadian Workmen and financed by Canadian Capital."
The assets of Medalta Stoneware Ltd. were eventually taken over by Medalta Potteries Ltd. The new company acquired the property in Medicine Hat and the clay leases in Saskatchewan. Bill Wyatt supervised the plant and he added over 500 new items to the Medalta line. The late 1920s marked the peak of Medalta's success in stoneware manufacture but in 1929 all of this came to an end. Beverage bottlers in Western Canada began using glass containers over stoneware and in 1929 the shareholders of Medalta Potteries Ltd. sold their assets. The stock market crash and the depression that followed worsened the situation. Medalta Potteries Ltd. managed to stay in business, but could employ only fifteen to forty people working four or five months of the year.
Things improved in 1937 when a ceramic engineer, Ed Philipson, was hired as superintendent. Under Philipson, Medalta Potteries Ltd. began producing a full range of hotel ware. During the Second World War, the Medalta plant was kept busy making dishes for the armed forces. Once the war ended, the company returned to manufacturing hotel china. The late 1940s marked a second boom period for the plant and during this time ownership passed to a group from Montreal, Quebec. Philipson remained the superintendent and business boomed. In 1952 however, the company was sold again. Under the new management the plant failed and in the summer of 1954 Medalta Potteries Ltd. closed down.
| | CUSTODIAL HISTORY: | In 1964, Dr. G.D. Williams of the Department of Geology of the University of Alberta, donated the material comprising PR1965.0017 to the Provincial Archives of Alberta. It's unknown how Dr. G.D. William obtained the material.
Medalta Potteries Ltd. deposited PR1969.0216, PR1969.0235 with the Human History Division of the Provincial Museum of Alberta. These records were subsequently transferred to the Provincial Archives of Alberta in two accessions in 1969.
Accession PR1975.410 was deposited in the Archives by Mrs. Jessie Reuber who salvaged the records from a building in Redcliff, Alberta. | | SCOPE AND CONTENT: | Fonds consists of the business records of Medalta Potteries Ltd. including financial records, minutes, correspondence, reports, blueprints, maps and promotional materials. Fonds also includes photocopies of the certificate of incorporation, an example of a share certificate, and minutes of the first meeting of the stock-holders dated December 22, 1915, The fonds has been divided into the following series: Correspondence; Financial records; and General files. | | PHYSICAL CONDITION: | See Condition Survey | | ARRANGEMENT NOTE: | Records have been arranged chronologically and the correspondence is ordered alphabetically within each year within accessions PR1969.0216 and PR1969.0235. | | ASSOCIATED MATERIAL: | Other records pertaining to Medalta Potteries Ltd. are located at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta and at the Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery in Medicine Hat, Alberta. | | RELATED RECORDS: | Additional records pertaining to Medalta Potteries Ltd. are located in accessions PR1964.0017 and PR1970.0001 at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. | | GENERAL NOTE: | Information in the Administrative History was taken from the records and a report prepared by Jack Forbes for the Medalta Potteries Project Development Committee called Medalta: A Feasibility Analysis 1984. | | RELATED FILES: | Display FileList |
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