Franciscan Ceramics are ceramic tableware and tile products produced by Gladding, McBean & Co. in Los Angeles, California, US from 1934 to 1962, International Pipe and Ceramics (Interpace) from 1962 to 1979, and Wedgwood from 1979 to 1983. Wedgwood closed the Los Angeles plant, and moved the production of dinnerware to England in 1983. Waterford Glass Group plc purchased Wedgwood in 1986, becoming Waterford Wedgwood. KPS Capital Partners acquired all of the holdings of Waterford Wedgwood in 2009. The Franciscan brand became part of a group of companies known as WWRD, an acronym for "Wedgwood Waterford Royal Doulton." WWRD continues to produce the Franciscan patterns Desert Rose and Apple.

Trade names were Franciscan Pottery, Franciscan Ware, and Franciscan for dinnerware products. Trade names for tile products were Gladding, McBean, Interpace, Hermosa, Terra Tile, and Contours Tile. Ceramic production included terracotta garden ware, earthenware tableware & art ware, porcelain tableware & art ware, stoneware tableware, stoneware and earthenware tile. Currently only the trade name Franciscan is used by WWRD for tabletop products.

Beginning in 1875, as a partnership between Charles Gladding, Peter McGill McBean, and George Chambers, Gladding, McBean & Co. would expand from one factory in Lincoln, California to multiple manufacturing plants throughout the Pacific West Coast producing clay products from sewer pipe to architectural terracotta.

In 1927, Gladding, McBean & Co. consolidated with Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company solidifying the primacy of Gladding, McBean & Co. as the largest terra cotta manufacturer west of the Mississippi. Gladding, McBean & Co. retained ceramic engineer Max Compton from the former Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company's plant in Santa Monica California. Compton, a 1922 graduate of Alfred University, studied under Charles F. Binns. In 1929, Compton was sent to the company's Lincoln plant to work on glazes and shortly thereafter became the plant's superintendent of the terracotta department. Compton would return to Los Angeles in 1937 to work in the glaze laboratory.

In the economic collapse of 1929, Gladding, McBean & Co. saw its revenue decreasing due to the lack of new construction, which was the main source of the demand for its ceramic products: roofing tile, sewer pipe, architectural terracotta, and brick. To offset the loss of revenues from the sales of ceramic building materials, the company began the manufacture of earthenware dinnerware and art ware in 1933 in the former Tropico Potteries factory. Tropico Potteries was acquired by the company in 1923. The forty acre pottery, located at 2901 Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, bordered the city of Glendale. Gladding, McBean & Co. had two plant facilities in Los Angeles, so the former Tropico pottery was named the Glendale plant.

In 1934, Gladding, McBean & Co. hired Frederic J. Grant as a vice-president and the new Glendale dinnerware division's plant manager. Frederic, a chemical engineer, had retired as president of the Weller Pottery Company in Ohio, selling off his interest in the company. After becoming tired of touring around the country as a well known amateur golfer, he made up his mind to become active in business again. Mary K. Grant, prior to her marriage to Frederic, was the art director at R. H. Macy Co. in New York City. The company agreed to have Mary Grant style the pottery lines of tableware and art ware; however at this time she would not hold an official position.

The tableware and art ware lines, including Coronado, were produced in solid color glazes. Three other Southern California companies were already in production of solid colored dinnerware: J. A. Bauer Pottery Co., Pacific Clay Products Co., and Catalina Clay Products Division of Santa Catalina Island Co. Laboratory testing on the three competitive dinnerware lines revealed all three crazed in an autoclave test.

Gladding, McBean & Co.’s ware would be produced in a new patented earthenware clay body known as Malinite. Dr. Andrew Malinovsky developed the high talc one-fire body using an amorphous flux in 1928 for Gladding, McBean & Co. Malinite was developed for use in the production of one-fire clay tile; however the company made the decision to use Malinite for their dinnerware production. By using the Malinite and adjusting the kiln temperature for a one fire process, the company solved the crazing problem in their own product. Glaze was applied to the unfired body, and the glaze and body matured together in the kiln, saving the company the time and expense of separate biscuit firing for the body. For the new line of pottery, Gladding, McBean & Co. decided to use Prouty tunnel kilns. The Prouty tunnel kiln patents were acquired in the purchase of the West Coast holdings of the American Encaustic Tiling Company in 1933. Prouty tunnel kilns allowed for the continuous flow of ware through the kiln to fire pottery. Thus the plant “combined mills, jiggering units, conveyors, dryers and kilns into a model of straight line output.”