"Offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination and destructive to health."

This was how drinking water in London, which was drawn from the Thames River, was described in a pamphlet in 1827. The Thames was completely polluted with raw sewage and effluent water from factory run-off; cholera and typhoid epidemics were rampant.

John Doulton founded his first pottery in 1815.

By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne, Doulton was well established as a manufacturer of domestic and industrial ceramic products.

In 1837, she commissioned his son, Henry Doulton to produce a water filter for the Royal household.  Doulton created a gravity-fed filtration system that used a ceramic filter.

With Louis Pasteur's advancement of microbiology in 1962, Doulton's Research and Development department managed to create micro-porous ceramic cartridges capable of removing harmful bacteria with considerably great effectiveness back in the day.

In 1882, Henry Doulton acquired a factory in the Midlands, heart of the Staffordshire pottery industry.

In 1901, King Edward VII knighted Henry Doulton and subsequently conferred the honor of the royal warrant and sold the exclusive right to use the title "Royal" for his work on drinking water filtration.

In 1906, Royal Doulton introduced a filter that proved to be equal to the one Louis Pasteur had developed in France. It was rapidly adopted by hospitals, laboratories and for use in domestic households throughout the world.

Since Then

Doulton® ceramic filters are used daily in over 150 countries and have been continuously manufactured in the UK for over 190 years up to this day.

Doulton® ceramic filters are now separate from the Royal Doulton® ceramic facility under Fairey Ceramic Industries, but both share a rich history. Over the years through continuous research and development, the range and efficiency of Doulton® ceramic filters have been widely extended to meet the demands of increasingly sophisticated uses.

The Doulton® name is the choice for ceramic water purification products where outbreaks of illness are associated with unreliable water supplies, and in households around the world.

When you BUY a doulton®, You don't just RECEIVE a water filter. You RECEIVE a legacy.

A bridge in history

In 2004, the founders of Arkwater met with Michael Doulton, a fifth-generational descendant of Henry Doulton, in a signing event on our very own home island of Singapore! Micheal, who is still involved in the ceramics industry in the Royal Doulton® company, was pleased to hear about how far Doulton® ceramic filters had managed find itself all the way in our corner of the world of Southeast Asia.

The meeting brought to surface the wonderful heritage that both sides share, which for decades had quietly faded away, even back in the birthplace of Doulton ceramics inside of the United Kingdom.

How marvelous is it that the ebbs and flows of history always finds ways to link itself together in curious ways!