1873
1893
January 7, Wallace moves his family to Pomona House, 111 New King’s Road, Fulham, where various attempts at kiln building are made. His brother Walter joins and the first works by the Martin Brothers are produced, Edwin Martin joins shortly afterwards. July 3, Robert Wallace Martin and Elizabeth are married.
The Bohemian Club from San Francisco commissioned a punch-bowl. During the early nineties the shop prospered and was visited by William de Morgan, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Tiffany’s New York made purchases.
1874 Wallace is introduced to the ironmonger Frederick Nettlefold, a patron who purchases and displays the Martin Brothers’ works in his showroom, and orders tiles for the boardroom fireplace after visiting Pomona House.
In celebration of the Diamond Jubilee, Wallace produces two portraits of Queen Victoria; he then sculpts a larger version to be placed above the foundation stone for the Victoria and Albert Museum, but it was criticised for a lack of color, in which Wallace responded by taking it back.
1877
1898
Nettlefold advances the Martin Brothers the money to secure premises at Southall, Middlesex.
The architect Sydney Greenslade is introduced to the brothers Charles, Walter and Edwin Martin, while attending an event in Holborn for the Architectural Association.
1878-1879 Nettlefold provides a retail establishment to present the works at 16 Brownlow Street, High Holborn. The shop was managed by Charles Douglas Martin, who admired his brothers’ work, was extremely knowledgeable on art, a percipient individual, knowing how to approach each customer that would visit the shop.
1900
Circa 1880
Sunday morning January 18, a fire occurs at the shop Brownlow Street, in Holborn. Indirectly the fire caused the destruction of much of their work, it was various calamities between the firemen, salvage-men and the collapse of a chimney stack that destroyed a majority of the pieces. The following year the shop reopens, but unfortunately the November firing was not a great success.
Walter Martin develops different shades and vastly expands their range of colors. Wallace develops his grotesque “Wally-birds” in the form of tobacco covered jars. Their anthropomorphic features are further pronounced as they form archetypes such as: “Generals,” “Judges,” “Admirals,” and the physiognomies of particular figures of the time, including Gladstone and Disraeli.
Accompanied by Sydney Greenslade, Edwin, Walter and Charles visit the Exposition Universelle in Paris.
1903-1904
1906
1882
May 23, James Agnus Martin returns from Australia after almost forty years to visit his brothers.
Cosmo Monkhouse writes an article on the Martin Brothers with the complimentary title, “Some Original Ceramists,” which is published in The Magazine of Art.
1909-1910
1885 Wallace inspired by Roman antiquity designs jugs with grinning faces on either side. These jugs were developed further and even caricatured politicians.
1886 The Martin Brothers are commissioned by Sir William Drake to produce for the entrance hall a tiled dado, and a sundial for the garden.
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1897
Charles Douglas Martin is declared insane at the Bethlehem Royal hospital and eventually he dies from tuberculosis.
1912 Walter Martin dies.
1913 Frederick Nettlefold dies.
1914
1891
The Brownlow Street shop closes.
Nettlefold commissions Wallace to design a fountain, which the Martin Brothers produced and it was installed in the grounds of his house, The Grove, Streatham, in London.
1923 Robert Wallace Martin dies of pneumonia aged 80.
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