CLAY

Village Names - CLAYER or CLAYMAN - the marl-digger. To this day, in the Fens of Cambridge, the fields are dressed by digging down below the vegetable mould to greasy marl beneath, and this is spread as manure over the soil. But the clayer also dug the clay for kneading with straw for the building of cob-walls. As a surname, Claye. (3)

English Ancestral Names - The Potters - Turning a cartload of clay just fresh from the earth into a carload of finished pottery was a slow process involving at least two weeks of hard work for one man and his helper. Usually, one shop developed skill in making one item and concentrated on this; thus the man who made crocks did not make pots or bowls, jugs or pitchers.

The shop of the potter was usually a little one-room affair with a lean-to in the rear, where he lived. The shop contained his kiln, which, when loaded with freshly made pieces, was fired up and kept hot for twenty-four to thirty hours. It also held the potter's wheel on which he shaped lumps of prepared clay into any form he wanted. No one seems to know who invented he potter's wheel or even where or when, but we do know that it was in common use throughout England in this period.

If the potter's own little piece of land held by agreement with the lord of the manor did not have suitable clay for pottery, he would make an arrangement with someone who did; this would be his CLAYMAN or, if suitable clay was to be found under the bed of a steam or pond, the supplier might be called CLAYBROOK or CLAYPOOL or CLAYBURN. The supplier would not be a potter himself but would surely be included in the industry.

The raw clay would contain pebbles and considerable extraneious material that had to be eliminated , so after it dried out, it was broken into small pieces, which were put through a seive. But the sifted clay still contained a lot of small pieces of foreign material, so the whole batch would be put in a mixing vat, and water added. The potter then stirred this with a paddle, with his srong right arm, tillit had the consistency of thick soup. This would enable the heavier materials to sink to the bottom and the lighter stuff to float to the top , where it could be skimmed off from time to time. He would let it settle overnight and then decant off the clear water through a hole in the side of the vat to get rid of the soluble material in the clay. By this time, several days had passed. There was still much to be done.

Once a potter decided that his material was fairly clean, he was ready to add the other materials necessary for the mixture to bake out satisfactorily. Here he had to draw heavily on his experience with that clay and the very small variety of hardening agents available. Nearly always he would add some fine white sand and some finely ground flint. Pieces of flint had to be heated as hot as possible and then plunged into cold water, which would crack them into small bits. Then dried out enough so that it could be handled in great soft lumps, it was kneaded thoroughly to get the air bubbles out of it and then set aside for a couple of days to season.... (4)

Var's: Clay, Claybrook, Clayburn, Claycomb, Clayer, Clayman, Claymore, Claypool, Claysmith, Claysmyth, Clayton.

Researching:   Dorothy Elizabeth M. A. Clay m. 1941 Woollahra NSW
                           Lawrence Archibald James Colbron b.1911