Working Conditions and Responsibilities of Fireman
The person in charge of firing a bottle oven was known as the fireman. He controlled the firing, staying in the bottle oven throughout the firing process. It was a highly skilled job, as the success of the firing depended on his experience.
A fireman's child remembers:
"I've took me father's food [to] work, breakfast time, dinner time, tea time, and some for his supper - he used [to] work about hundred odd hours a week. He never used to only place the ovens, he used to sit up with 'em, help fire them as well, you know, feed the oven. Then used to see him sometimes perhaps Saturday night, or Saturday dinnertime, he'd be home. We never used to see him during the week"
The process
The firing process divides into three stages - placing or filling the kiln with saggars full of ware; firing the kiln; drawing or emptying the kiln.
The fireman would work with one or two assistants. The ware would be placed, stacking the full saggars into the kiln, filling the space completely, and then the doorway (clammins) was bricked up. The skill of the fireman was important in order to position wares in the parts of the oven that suited them best.
The coal used for firing was graded for use in different parts of the process. The fireman baited the 'firemouths' of the ovens and carefully distributed the burning coals within the oven, regulating the airspace and operating adjustable dampers in the upper parts of the kiln to ensure either an even temperature or a gradual rise or fall as needed. At each baiting a trial piece was drawn from the oven to help the fireman assess the progress.
Drawing
Drawing (emptying the kiln) was hard manual labour made worse by the intense heat. When drawing a kiln it was necessary to strip to the waist to allow the body to sweat freely and drink huge amounts of water to prevent heat exhaustion, which could lead to fainting. Dampened bags were worn over their heads to enable them to breathe the dry, heated air and thick material was used to bind the hands before the rough surfaced saggars could be handled.
Firing
When the biscuit oven at Gladstone Pottery was fired the kiln fires were started on a Monday morning and the kiln drawn on Friday morning. Two men were involved with the baiting of the oven, coal being added every two to two and a half hours. Due to the limited space inside the bottle oven shovels were not used to move the coal, beating boxes like a type of coalscuttle were used. Each box contained approximately three shovels full of fuel, and four or five boxes would be added to each mouth of the kiln. This is roughly two-hundredweight per mouth per baiting, taking up to 14 tons of coal to fire an oven. The kiln would be fired continuously until the early evening of Wednesday when the oven was allowed to cool, this took until early Friday when the kiln would be drawn. Emptying would take four to five hours, after which the oven was swept out, ready for the next firing.
Health risks
Firing ovens affected the fireman's health. The continual changes in temperature from extreme heat to cold while covered in sweat made him more susceptible to minor ailments and rheumatic problems. The sulphurous fumes from firing and dust from coal, lime (used to layer the floor of the kiln to seal cracks) and flint (used to place the ware in saggars) are linked to respiratory disorders such as asthma and silicosis. The fireman had to breathe in an atmosphere clouded with particles as he moved the coal, swept the kiln and placed and drew the saggars.
During the early twentieth century efforts started being made to improve conditions in the pottery industry generally. However, firemen resisted protective clothing as they said it made working even more uncomfortable and held the dust.
Once the link between silicate dusts, such as flint, and diseases of the respiratory system had been proved, attempts were made to find substitutes. Alumina could be used instead of flint but was slow to be taken up. In 1930 no Longton firm had yet changed over to alumina which factories claimed did prevent warping of the ware as efficiently as flint.
Other responsibilities
Additional responsibilities of the fireman included recovering gold from materials used in gilding. These would be burned to ash, paraffin added and burnt again leaving gold residue to be used again.
