The Cumming Research Foundation Email The Cumming Ceramic Research Foundation!


The Cumming Ceramic Research Foundation
was a non-profit Canadian federally-incorporated charitable trust, established in 1991 to encourage and support the expansion of knowledge about ceramics, with emphasis on the production of British and European factories dating from the late-18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.Between 1993 and 2013 it awarded an annual international scholarship and research grants for work in the field. A list of recipients follows.

The Foundation's charter was surrendered in 2013 and scholarships and grants are no longer being awarded.  However, programs and public education at the Gardiner Museum continue to be funded through other means.


The Cumming Collection

This is a study Collection, based exclusively on examples from the Minton factory, designed to show the development of English ceramics across the 19th century, on into the early decades of the 20th century. The Cumming Collection at the Gardiner Museum can be seen on the Museum's website at www.gardinermuseum.on.ca

2013 
The Scholarship was awarded to Emma O'Toole, a PHD candidate at the National College of Art $ Design in Ireland.  She will carry out a four-week research study into the Dr. Theodore Drake Collection held in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Canada.  It is one of the largest and most inclusive collections of eighteenth and nineteenth-century infant ceramic feeding paraphernalia.  With this award, her intended research will seek to highlight the early modern production and use of domestic infantile ceramic wares, a subject that has hitherto been given little attention.

2012
The Scholarship was not awarded in 2012, however the Board awarded a special research grant to Dr. Bruce Pynn for continuing research. Dr. Pynn has been collecting and researching transfer printed ceramic advertising pot lids, often with stunning pictorials, for over ten years. The new use of ceramic containers in the 1840's to early 1900's, and the wider use of toothpaste by the general public, was a major development in Victorian oral hygiene. Dr. Pynn has achieved international recognition for his work, and he has donated a number of antique toothpaste pot lids to the Faculty of Dentistry museum at the University of Toronto.

2011
The Scholarship was awarded to J. Victor Owen to chemically analyze porcelain wares produced by John and Ralph Baddley and William Littler.

The Board also awarded a special grant to Charlotte A. Jacob-Hanson for research regarding "An Italianate Service: the Worcester 'Grubbe' landscape plates painted in puce camaien", especially their Giles connections and the print sources used for their decoration.

2010
The Scholarship was awarded to Dr. Anne Anderson to research "Chelsea Mania: the heyday of collecting Chelsea Gold Anchor Period".

The Board also awarded a special grant to Dr. Paul Arthur for research on French Art Nouveau ceramics.

2009
No scholarship or grants were awarded in 2009.

2008

The Scholarship was awarded to Margaret Carney, Ph.D. of Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A. Dr. Carney will carry out research into Worcester's Sabrina Ware and the Binns men who were involved at Worcester and in the U.S.A. She will explore the place of Sabrina Ware within the 19th century ceramic world - between industrial mass production and hand-made one-of-a-kind Art Pottery.

A special grant was awarded to Dr. Jennifer Lewis to assist her research concerning "Gaudy Welsh China: history, technology, design and decoration".

2007
The Scholarship was awarded to Anne Anderson BA PhD FSA. of Horton Heath, Hampshire, U.K. Dr. Anderson aims to assess the impact of patterns of antique china collecting on Victorian ceramic production, to determine the relationship between historic ceramic types and modern manufacture.

2006
No scholarship or grants were awarded in 2006.

2005
The 2005 Scholarship was awarded to Dr. and Mrs. W.H.R. Ramsay of Buninyong, Victoria, Australia who are conducting research into the recipe changes which occurred at the Bow porcelain manufactory. The goal of this work is to produce an integrated classification of Bow porcelain which can be used by collectors, curators and dealers.

2004
The Scholarship was not awarded in 2004 but important research grants were given to Richard D. Burt, Diana Connell and Sue Taylor.
Mr. Burt will research the origins of the Worcester Porcelain factory, specifically the socio-economic and political motives of the original fifteen partners.
Ms. Connell, who was awarded the 2003 Scholarship, will continue her study of Scottish ceramics, including some fifty factories in the West of Scotland.
Ms. Taylor will intensify her research in electrical porcelain which played a major role in the 19th century technological developments, including telegraphy and electrical power production and distribution.

2003
The 2003 Scholarship was awarded to Ms. Diana Connell of Glasgow, Scotland.
Ms. Connell will conduct comprehensive research into the background and history of transfer printing in Scotland and its connection with other centres like Staffordshire. Engravings will be studied and engravers working in Scotland will be identified. She will examine the products of a substantial number of pot houses across Scotland; patterns will be explored, as well as marks and back stamps used by various factories.

2002
The 2002 Scholarship was awarded to Ms. Aisling Molloy, of County Clare, Ireland, to support her research in Canada concerning the Irish ceramic designer, Frederick Vodrey (1845-97), and the Vodrian pottery.
The Foundation also provided financial support to Mr. Gregory Freear of Merseyside, England, for
pre-publication research into the life of Thomas Lakin and a reproduction of his recipe book.

2001
The Scholarship was not awarded in 2001.
A grant was awarded to Mr. Peter Goodfellow to support his research of “The Vine Pottery”, Birks Rawlins & Co., and the Birks family as modellers, sculptors, and pottery artists within the North Staffordshire ceramic industry.
The Foundation also provided financial support to Ms. Helen Hallesy’s research into the trade between Cuba and Wales in the early nineteenth century. The transport of copper ore from Cuba is well documented, but the exchange of large quantities of Swansea pottery in return has remained unknown.

2000
The 2000 Scholarship was awarded to Leslie E. Gerhauser. Ms. Gerhauser’s research concerns English delftwares imported into and utilized in the New York area in the pre-revolutionary era between 1700 and 1775.
A research grant was awarded to Ms. Aileen Dawson, of London, England, to support her seminal work in preparing a thematic overview of the porcelain industry in France from its inception in the late 17th century until the beginning of the 19th century. This is intended to be the first synthesis in English of the subject, aside from Ms. Dawson’s Catalogue of French Porcelain in the British Museum.
The Foundation also provided financial support to Diane and Roger Oddy for their project to record, photograph and identify the large quantity of original 18th and early 19th century Derby and Chelsea-Derby master figure models and moulds in the archives of the Spode factory at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. The catalogue will provide an invaluable record of the Derby factory’s figure production for historians, curators and collectors.

1999
The 1999 Scholarship was awarded to Lynn F. Pearson, Ph.D. of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
In collaboration with the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society he was researching the design and use of Minton encaustic tiles in churches in Staffordshire, England. This study is part of a larger project which involves the location, survey and analysis of the principal British tile and architectural ceramic sites in Great Britain.
The Foundation also awarded a special research grant to Anthony T. Evans to explore the role of Arthur Minton in early 19th century English ceramics. A London “chinaman”, he has remained in the shadow of his more famous brother, Thomas, who founded the Minton pottery at Stoke-on-Trent. This research would add a further dimension to established knowledge about the Minton family and its place in English ceramic history.

1998
The 1998 Scholarship was awarded to Ronald W. Fuchs II, M.A., who was researching the use of English and Dutch tin-glazed earthenware fireplace tiles in the eighteenth century in the Greater Delaware Valley; an area encompassing Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Southern New Jersey.
The Foundation also awarded a special continuing support grant to Stephen G. Harrison, MA, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, Dallas Museum of Art. In preparation for a traveling exhibition, China and Glass in America, 1880-1980, and the publication of a scholarly book by the same title, both in 1999. Mr. Harrison was carrying out research covering the export of British ceramics to the United States during this period.

1997
The 1997 Scholarship was awarded to Dr. Charles L. Venable, Associate Director and Curator of Decorative Arts at the Dallas Museum of Art.
In preparation for a traveling exhibition “China and Glass in America 1880-1980", and the publication of a scholarly book by the same title, both in 1999, Dr. Venable was carrying out research covering the export of British ceramics to the United States during this period.

1996
The 1996 Scholarship was awarded to Mr. Conrad Biernacki of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In preparation for publication of an illustrated catalogue of 19th century Copeland picture tiles, Mr. Biernacki carried out research covering a wide variety and styles of 19th-century tiles produced by this factory.

1995
The 1995 Scholarship was awarded to Bernard Bumpus of London, England. Mr. Bumpus is well-known in Museum and collecting circles for his serious studies of the pate-sur-pate technique, and regarding ceramic decorators whose work has linked the artistic endeavours of England, France and North America.
At the time, Mr. Bumpus was preparing a new monograph covering the many facets of the career of Marc Louis Solon, especially his work at Sevres and Minton.

1994
The 1994 Scholarship was awarded to Oliver Fairclough of Cardiff, Wales. Mr. Fairclough was Assistant Keeper (Applied Art), Department of Art, National Museum of Wales.
In preparation for publication, by the National Museum of Wales, of a new catalogue covering Swansea and Nantgarw porcelain (1913-26) regarding examples of these 19th century Welsh porcelains in other collections in the United Kingdom and North America.
The Board has also awarded a continuing support scholarship to Julie Saunders of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for post-graduate research concerning the bone china dessert service commissioned from Minton by Lord William Fitzwilliam Milton. Painted with Canadian scenes, sketched and photographed by Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle, the service commemorated the expedition which Lord Milton led, in 1862-63, to find a route for the North-West Passage.

1993
The 1993 Scholarship was awarded to Louise Taylor of Birmingham to pursue her research further at the Ph.D. level, at Staffordshire University, covering the role of foreign artists at Minton in the second half of the 19th century, and their impact on British ceramic manufacture. She was to examine the links between Minton and Sevres, and the situation after the period of Leon Arnoux, not only at Minton but also at other leading English factories.
In recognition of Minton’s bicentenary in 1993, the Board also awarded a special scholarship to Julie Saunders of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for postgraduate research concerning the bone china dessert service commissioned from Minton by Lord William Fitzwilliam Milton. Painted with Canadian scenes, sketched and photographed by Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle, the service commemorated the expedition which Lord Milton lead, in 1862-63, to find a route westward through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast.




Minton Potpourri c. 1830
Cumming Collection
Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art


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