Sovereign Potters was founded in 1933 by W. G. Pulkingham (President) , A.G. Etherington (Sales Manager), and James McMaster to manufacture semi-porcelain dinnerware and vitrified tableware for hotels and railways (notably, the CN railways, and the Kon-Tiki Room in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal).
Sovereign Potters served as the major manufacturer of white-ware china in Ontario. Between 1949 - 1957, the company produced modern design pottery by architect A. Bruce Etherington and manufactured (reinterpreted) designs by Mary and Russel Wright. It was the second Canadian commercial pottery of ironstone china , the first was St. Johns Stone Chinaware Company, 1873-1896, of St. John, Quebec.
, "[...] Sovereign Potters led the design and production of informal modern dinnerware, marketed as "everyday indoor and outdoor living." At its peak, the pottery employed a staff of four hundred.
Founded by the local businessmen William Pulkingham (who later bought Medalta), Alfred Etherington and James McMaster (formerly of McMaster Art Pottery in Dundas), Sovereign Potters imported equipment from Syracuse, New York, to produce whiteware china for the hospitality market, which would remain its mainstay. The ROM holds a collection of the first dinnerware to come off the Sovereign assembly line (inscribed February 1934).
Family connections with the influential American designer Russel Wright and his wife, Mary Wright, enabled Sovereign Potters to produce some of their patterns in 1954 under licence.58 The company "borrowed" the Wrights' design elements for its own line. The Carnival line was created by Etherington, with assistance from his children. Lois Etherington Betteridge went on to become one of Canada’s leading metalsmith artists, and Bruce Etherington became a respected architect.
In addition to the modern dinnerware, Sovereign Potters produced over twenty traditional British-style china patterns, as well as butter dishes for Canadian Westinghouse Company refrigerators. In 1947 Sovereign became affiliated with H & R Johnson Brothers, the largest tableware manufacturer in England. Ten years later, Sovereign Potters manufactured only industrial tiles. Tableware blanks, imported from the parent company, were decorated locally. In 1974 the company changed its name to H & R Johnson (Canada). It closed in 1993."