John Gerald Potter

John Gerald Potter (1829–1908) was an English wallpaper manufacturer, known also as a patron of James McNeill Whistler.

The printing of calico was introduced to Darwen in Lancashire by James Greenway, in 1776. John Potter (1773–1838), a Manchester merchant, married his daughter Sarah, and had a family of four sons and five daughters, of whom two died young. The sons included Charles Potter (1802–1872) and his brothers Alfred (born 1804), Harold (born 1806), and Edwin (born 1810). Of the daughters, Sarah Jane (born 1799) married the Hon. Anthony Oliver Molesworth of the Royal Artillery, and Julia (born 1817) married Nathaniel James Merriman and was mother of John X. Merriman.

James Greenway set up the Dob Meadow Print Works for calico in 1808. He was joined in the business by John Potter, and William Maude, another son-in-law. Charles Potter, John's son, came to work there in the 1820s. In 1831, however, John Potter and William Maude were bankrupted. Charles Potter and William Ross, in 1832, set up a new partnership, Potter & Ross, printing calico.

Potter & Co., wallpaper manufacturer in Darwen, was founded by Charles Potter, Harold and Edwin in 1840, spun out of the calico printers Potter & Ross. The new business depended on Patent No. 8302 of 1839, obtained by Harold Potter, adapting a calico printing technique to wallpaper.

Edmund Potter, another calico printer, was a nephew of John Potter (1773–1838), the son of his brother James. There was therefore a family connection between the wallpaper Potters and Beatrix Potter, granddaughter of Edmund Potter. She showed she was aware of it, in a letter about a frieze of some of her characters.

John Gerald Potter was the only son of Charles Potter (1802–1872) and his wife Grace Gordon, born at Dinting, Derbyshire in July 1829. He became a partner in Potter & Co., wallpaper manufacturers, in 1849.

In 1854, with Robert Mills, Potter took out a patent for carpet manufacture improvements. A family partnership, "The Darwen Carpet Company", was dissolved in 1858. In 1862 Potter gave evidence to the Children's Employment Commission. In 1864 he replaced his father as senior partner of the wallpaper firm.

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