In 1853, Christopher Thompson Maling (1824-1901) took over the running of the Ouseburn Bridge pottery from his father Robert. The company's success was built on the manufacture of commercial wares - pots and containers of all shapes and sizes. A new factory was built, known as the Ford pottery, which produced some 750,000 articles a month and C.T. Maling made his fortune from the manufacture of jam and marmalade pots for James Keiller of Dundee among others, together with jars for ointments and creams. The Ford B pottery at Walker was completed in 1878, and was reputed to be the largest in Britain. For almost fifty years, the two Ford potteries employed a thousand persons, predominantly female, and expanded into hospital and sanitary wares. Decorated domestic services were also produced, some with local names, like Jesmond and Blagdon. Unlike the daunting 'Haggie's Angels' at the North Shields ropery, the Maling girls were regarded with some affection as 'Maling's White Mice' (because of the white clay on their boots). The work was skilled and the higher-paid gilders and painters, known as 'the Ladies' were accorded immense respect within the factory. Glass began to replace ceramic containers in the early twentieth century and the miners' strike of 1926 caused the closure of the Ford A pottery, which never reopened.
In 1929, Maling began a long association with the Rington tea firm, producing for them a range of blue and white transfer-printed objects, many of them sold to customers at the door, filled with Rington's tea. The designer of these pieces was Lucien Boullemier, who became Maling's art director in the early 1920s. His son, also Lucien, followed in his father's footsteps until the Maling firm closed in 1963, largely as a result of Japanese competition. Maling never produced porcelain, but nowadays the firm's bright and cheerful designs, including commemorative and floral lustreware are keenly collected in the North East.

Mention should be made here of the famous Adamsez trade mark. Charles and Moses Adams transferred their Leeds sanitary ware business to Scotswood in 1903 and began to make products which can still be seen in public and private conveniences round the world. Unable to compete with plastic fittings, the Adamsez factory closed in 1975.