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The end of an era
Acid jars at EID Parry, Ranipet.
The recent announcement that Parry & Co is, to all intents and purposes, quitting the sanitaryware/ceramics business brings to an end, even if the Parryware name continues, a century-old, and pioneering, association with the industry. That century had its beginnings in Ranipet in 1908.
Parry’s, which initially had been in indigo and cotton, moved into sugar in 1842, taking over sick units in South Arcot and making a success of them by adding distilleries to each. When the Arcot Sugar Works and Distilleries, founded in Ranipet by Arbuthnot’s, began facing difficulties, Parry’s took it over in 1895 and put down its footprint in North Arcot. Two years later, East India Distilleries and Sugar Factories Ltd (the EID associated with the Parry name) was floated in London to take over all Parry’s sugar factories and distilleries. Parry’s was to be EID’s managing agents in India. But with sugar’s fortunes constantly fluctuating, EID decided it needed to diversify.
A potter at work.
It set up a tannery in Ranipet, which, rather logically, led to its next venture in the area, the Presidency Manure Works Ltd. established in 1904. Bone was grist for this mill that soon was providing manure not only for sugar farms but, more importantly, for the plantations. As sulphuric acid was needed to make bone super and sulphur phosphate, EID’s now set up a plant to manufacture sulphuric acid as well as, in time, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid etc. Acid needed jars for it to be stored and, so, in 1908 EID established ‘The Pottery’. Over time, The Pottery began to make a variety of other jars, all thrown by hand by potters trained on its premises. Then, in l952, The Pottery began manufacturing sanitaryware. When it teamed with Doulton’s of the U.K. in l962 and began to make ceramicware, quality improved by leaps and bounds. Before long the Parryware name had put down firm roots.
Writing in 1938 about The Pottery, Gibson, the Ranipet manager, said, “The Pottery came into existence…with a view to selling our acids in our own containers…(Then), as opportunities occurred, it was considered advisable to develop this line of trade by additional manufacture to suit the public demand. About 15 years ago, with the addition of an expert in jar-making, the manufactures were extended to other lines such as Pickle Jars, Stew Pots, Screw Jars, Bung Jars, Pink Jars and other sundry lines…” Another Ranipet manager added to the story in 1951, writing, “Considerable spade work has also been done towards the future production of Sanitaryware, and The Pottery, which once supplied 97 per cent of India’s acid jar requirements, will soon loom large in the Indian Market for lavatory basins, pans, sinks and other aids to hygienic living.” And thus were sown the seeds for Parryware. Now the name remains, but the association with it of EID-Parry, a linkage forged in 1962, will be for name’s sake alone. An era has ended.
S. MUTHIAH
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