12. European Pottery - Fall of Romans to the Present
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Commemorative ware was very popular in the first half of the 20th century. It was usually very affordable miniature pots with inscriptions of locations, often seaside resorts, such as “gift from Scarborough”. The Goss pottery produced high quality commemoratives shaped as replicas of pots from ancient times.
Hard-paste porcelain
William Cookworthy was born in 1705 into a Devon Quaker family. At the age of 15 he set off on foot to London to serve an apprenticeship with Silvanus Bevan, a well-known scientist who ran a pharmaceutical business. In 1726 he returned to Plymouth and set up a wholesale chemist business as a partnership with Bevan.
Cookworthy was also a Quaker minister and his work carried him all over the West Country and his interest turned to the minerals he came across. It transpired that a form of petuntse, called Cornwall stone, was used commonly as a building material in the Cornwall Peninsular, and kaolin was used by the Cornish tin miners to repair cracks in their furnaces. Cookworthy’s younger brother Phillip was a mate on an East Indiaman, so William was familiar with the porcelain cargo carried from China. His background, and awareness of the search for the formula for hard paste porcelain, led him to carry out considerable research work over several years on these and other materials. William and his brother went into partnership together around 1745 as William Cookworthy and Co.
Around 1748 he discovered kaolin and petuntse at Tregonnin Hill near Penzance. Since then vast amounts of good quality material has been found in Devon and Cornwall. Also as part of his work he had samples of Cherokee clay sent to him from America as early as 1745, and met the American Andre Duche on his visit to UK.
Cookworthy appears to have successfully made hard-paste porcelain in 1755. He set up the first hard-paste porcelain factory in Britain in 1768 in Plymouth and patented his formula, including a monopoly over the kaolin and china stone he had discovered in Cornwall, in the same year. He was probably also involved in the use of soapstone as an ingredient in porcelain, as used by the first Bristol factory in 1748, and later in Liverpool (Chafers and Christian), Worcester and Caughley. “Cornwall stone” was in fact a mixture of feldspar and steatite.
Plymouth hard paste, 1768-70,
blanc-de-chine seasons figure by Tebo, and
large polychrome vase - Reproduced by
permission of Plymouth City Council
Museums and Archives
Plymouth hard paste 1768-70, yellow butter tub,
sweetmeat dish, bird teapot and inkwell
(reputed to be Cookworthy’s)
- Reproduced by permission of Plymouth
City Council Museums and Archives
Champion’s Bristol,
Seasons figure by Tebo
1770-81 - Reproduced by
permission of Plymouth
City Council Museums
and Archives
Richard Champion was introduced to Cookworthy in 1764 as a young man of 21. He became associated with Cookworthy in porcelain manufacture in Plymouth and the new factory they both set up in Bristol. Because of difficulties with process control and ensuing financial worries, after only two years of operation the Plymouth operation was transferred to the factory in Bristol run by Richard Champion re-named “The Bristol Porcelain Manufactory” in 1770. Champion acquired the patent for hard-paste porcelain in 1772 from Cookworthy, who retired in 1774, transferring the rest of his interests to Champion. The Bristol Porcelain factory produced some fine, beautiful neoclassical porcelain from around 1773.
However, Champion was having great problems, probably due to kiln design. Although the Cookworthy patent still had 7 years to run Champion needed to extend the patent by 14 years to make a financial return, so he made an application to parliament for an extension to the patent. In April 1775 Josiah Wedgwood and John Turner went to London representing Staffordshire potters and contested Champion’s application. The Staffordshire potters, particularly Wedgwood, wanted to use the Cornish clays to whiten their earthenware and use them for other bodies. They were not particularly interested in hard-paste porcelain (although Wedgwood made some trial hard-paste porcelain in 1776, and later in 1812, it made up a small percentage of their output). Richard Champion’s application was refused and he ceased making porcelain in 1778.