 By 1876 the Wards site had passed into the hands of R Hobson and Co and had been renamed Gladstone, after the politician William Ewart Gladstone.The factory opened as a museum in 1974, the buildings having been saved from demolition in 1970 when the pottery closed (some ten years after its bottle ovens were last fired).In the 1990s ownership passed to Stoke-on-Trent City Council.