What is a Saggar Makers Bottom Knocker
When considering the strangest jobs in the UK, two of the main sources of information are a television panel show of the 1950s and 60s called What’s my Line? and Tony Robinson’s book “The Worst Jobs in History”.Tony Robinson describes, and experienced at first hand during the making of the television series, some of the most gruesome, foul smelling, painful, debilitating and downright horrible jobs it would be possible to imagine. Some people spent their lives so desperate for an income, they were prepared to put up with one of these horrendous occupations.However, for those who recall What’s my Line, the name of one job stands out above all others for its strangeness. That is the "saggar-maker's bottom knocker".It sounds like an April Fool joke, or something made up for one of those party games which involves lying very convincingly. But no, the job actually existed, and may exist still in some places.The term comes from the early years of the pottery industry, especially in the Potteries District around Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England, and it describes part of the firing process for high quality porcelain.In order to protect items of delicate bone china from the fierce heat of the kiln, they were placed in large oval containers called saggars. A saggar was made of saggar clay, hence its name, and in moderating the extreme heat, it prevented what otherwise could have been damaging effects to the products.Saggars had to be made to very particular specifications, and by stacking materials carefully in a well made saggar, dramatic visual effects could be produced on the finished china. So the person who made the saggar had to be highly skilled and experienced, a veritable craftsman at Wedgwood’s or Royal Doulton, or one of the other producers of high quality china and porcelain.The first part of the saggar to be made was its bottom. This was made simply by placing clay in a metal hoop and knocking it into shape. There was far less skill involved in this operation, and it was often left to an apprentice, but once the bottom was made, the saggar could be constructed upon it, and so the saggar maker’s bottom knocker provided a vital part of the process which led to the production of some of the highest quality china ever produced.This may not be the strangest job in the UK, but it is certainly the job with the strangest name.
