Royal Chintz China, first known as Grimwades Ltd., is now formally known as Royal Winton. Royal Chintz China has long been known as the producer of beautifully designed chintz patterns.
The term chintz comes from a 17th century Indian word, chint, which means fabric that is brightly and broadly printed. Explorers from England, Portugal, Spain and Italy brought these chintz patterns back from India after their new world explorations. The fabrics they discovered were thickly woven and had bird and floral designs in many bright colors. These precursors to Royal Chintz China became vastly popular in Europe.
In the 1920’s Sydney and Leonard Grimwade, British brothers, developed mass production and manufacturing processes for the creation of chintz china. They bought out a porcelain factory in Staffordshire England and began what was to become Royal Chintz China. Leonard, a former lithographer, invented a transferring process called duplex lithography as well as his Climax kiln.
Both of these had a positive effect on the Royal Chintz china manufacture as well as the entire dinnerware industry as a whole. Thanks to Grimwade Royal Chintz china could now be manufactured quickly, easily and continually. Mass production of royal chintz china had Leonard Grimwade to thank.
The first Royal Chintz china pattern released by the brothers Grimwade was the Marguerite, named after Leonard’s wife’s pillow stitch pattern. Soon after its release Grimwades Ltd. Became Royal Winton Chintz China. 80 patterns total were then designed, some created by simply reversing the coloring of the background and the pattern’s foreground colors.
In 1993, Spencer Hammer and Associates took over the Royal Winton Chintz china firm, recreating some of its old chintz china patterns.
