Welcome to our site and a happy new year to you all. The countdown has really begun to our two hundredth birthday that we celebrate in 2010. It only seems like yesterday that Paul Farmer and I bought Wade from Beauford Plc in a management buy-in, but it was 9 years ago this May. Our new £6.5m investment programme, which was started in 2007 continues with our purchase of a new purpose built factory and the latest robotic manufacturing equipment. This will allow Wade to look forward to another 200 years of business. We hope to move into our new purpose built factory at Festival Park in Stoke on Trent early in 2009.

Wade Ceramics is a market leader in the design and production of high quality earthenware and porcelain products and the world leader in the design and supply of porcelain flagons for the international distilling industry.

Since our start in 1810 we have continuously produced our products in Burslem, “the mother town” of the six towns (Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke, Fenton, Longton and Hanley) that joined to make Stoke on Trent the UK’s centre for ceramics.

Only in 1953, after Sir George Wade (the jolly potter) developed Whimsies, a small solid ceramic collectable animal series, did Wade become a household name in the UK and America and the company has been known ever since as the “Home of the Whimsie”.

Spanning the three centuries, Wade has evolved to face the challenges of each decade with changes in customer base and product profile. This awareness of customer needs has allowed us to continue meeting the now price sensitive global demands of our customers. Products which do not need to be “Made in England” are manufactured in the Far East and our strategic partners out there work with us to manufacture our products to the exacting quality standards expected from a Wade product.

However, we remain proud of the fact that we continue to manufacture English porcelain in Stoke on Trent employing over two hundred highly skilled local people. Our capital investment programme announced earlier will ensure we continue to be a ceramics employer in Stoke competing successfully against competitors from low labour cost countries.

I hope you find what you are looking for on our web site but don’t forget we are just a phone call away if you can’t.

Edward Duke
Chairman