James Pulham and Son was a firm of Victorian landscape gardeners and terracotta manufacturers which exhibited and won medals at London's Great Exhibition of 1851 and 1862 International Exhibition.[1]
James Pulham and Son was founded by James Pulham (1793–1838) of Woodbridge in Suffolk, who was succeeded by his eldest son James (1820–1898) and then by two more generations of eldest sons, both also named James. The firm ceased trading in 1920.[2]
The firm was best known for the construction rock gardens, follies and grottoes in which it used both natural and their own artificial rock. Pulham and Son also manufactured a wide range of terracotta and Pulhamite garden ornaments, originally at their works in Tottenham, but after 1840 at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire. In 1895 the firm was granted a Royal Warrant by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII and some of their work survives at Sandringham House and Buckingham Palace[1].
At the 1867 Paris Exhibition the company showed the "Preston vase" (several of which were made for the People's Park, Preston), and the Mulready monument.[3] The latter, modelled by Godfrey Sykes[1] consisted of a pedestal 15 feet long and 10 feet wide, supporting an effigy, seven feet. long, on a raised bier. It won a silver medal at the exhibition, and was installed at Kensal Green cemetery on its return from Paris. [3]