Japanning in the Midlands
In the midlands, a japanned finish was given to a wide variety of goods including iron, tin, papier-mache, wood, slate and copper. For part of the 18th and the whole of the 19th century, the midlands was the leading centre of this industry, with Birmingham and Wolverhampton producing high quality goods. Wolverhampton’s museums are now believed to have the largest public collection of japanned goods in the country.
Many manufactories experimented with the production of a coating for metallic and wooden goods to rival the expensive, fashionable, Japanese, lacquered items. It was in Pontypool that the first recorded experiments became successfully applied to tinplate. Thomas Allgood, working at the Hanbury's iron rolling mills, made the discovery in the early 1700s. However, it was his son Edward who brought the process into use at around 1730, applying it to tinplate at the innovative Pontypool works.