THE
Ceramic Art
OF
UK

FROM PRE-HISTORIC TIMES DOWN TO THE PRESENT DAY

BEING A HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN

POTTERY AND PORCELAIN WORKS

OF THE KINGDOM

AND OF THEIR PRODUCTIONS OF EVERY CLASS

BY

LLEWELLYNN JEWITT, F.S.A.

LOCAL SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON;
HON. AND ACTUAL MEMBER OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL ARCHÆOLOGICAL COMMISSION, AND STATISTICAL
COMMITTEE, PSKOV;
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ARCHÆOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND;
ASSOCIATE OF THE BRITISH ARCHÆOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION;
HON. MEMBER OF THE ESSEX ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE MANX SOCIETY, ETC.;
COR. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
ETC. ETC. ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH NEARLY TWO THOUSAND ENGRAVINGS

IN TWO VOLUMES.—I.

LONDON
VIRTUE AND CO., Limited, 26, IVY LANE
PATERNOSTER ROW
1878

[All rights reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED,
CITY ROAD.

COLIN MINTON CAMPBELL, Esq.

M.P. FOR NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE,

ETC. ETC.,

THIS WORK,

WHICH TREATS OF AN ART FOR WHOSE DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENSION

HE AND THE FIRM OF MINTON

(OF WHICH HE IS NOW THE HEAD) HAVE DONE SO MUCH,

IS APPROPRIATELY AND WITH PERMISSION

Dedicated,

AS A MARK OF HIGH PERSONAL ESTEEM, AND AS

A SLIGHT TOKEN OF APPRECIATION OF THE EMINENT SERVICES

HE HAS UNIFORMLY RENDERED

TO THAT IMPORTANT BRANCH OF ART-MANUFACTURE

WITH WHICH HIS NAME IS SO INTIMATELY

AND SO WORTHILY ASSOCIATED.

LLEWELLYNN JEWITT.

Winster Hall, Derbyshire,

November, 1877.

In issuing my present work I have two distinct personal duties to perform, and I hasten, in these few brief lines of introduction, to discharge them. First, I earnestly desire to ask indulgence from my readers for any shortcomings which may be apparent in its contents; and next, I desire emphatically to express my thanks to all who have in any way, or even to the smallest extent, assisted me in my labours. The preparation of the work has extended over a considerable period of time, and I have had many difficulties to contend with that are, and must necessarily be, wholly unknown to any but myself—hard literary digging to get at facts and to verify dates, that is not understood, and would scarce be believed in, by the reader who turns to my pages—and hence errors of omission and of commission may have, nay, doubtless have crept in, and may in some places, to a greater or less extent, have marred the accuracy of the page whereon they have occurred. I can honestly say I have left nothing undone, no source untried, and no trouble untaken to secure perfect accuracy in all I have written, and yet I am painfully aware that shortcomings may, and doubtless will, be laid to my charge; for these, wherever they occur, I ask, and indeed claim, indulgence. I believe in work, in hard unceasing labour, in patient and painstaking research, in untiring searchings, and in diligent collection and arrangement of facts—to make time[viii] and labour and money subservient to the end in view, rather than that the end in view, and the time and labour and money expended, should bend and bow and ultimately break before time. Thus it is that my “Ceramic Art” has been so long in progress, and thus it is that many changes have occurred during the time it has been passing through the press which it has been manifestly impossible to chronicle.

I have the proud satisfaction, however, of knowing that my work is the only one of its kind yet attempted, and I feel a confident hope that it will fill a gap that has long wanted filling, and will be found alike useful to the manufacturer, the china collector, and the general reader.

When, some twenty years ago, at the instance of my dear friend Mr. S. C. Hall, I began my series of papers in the Art Journal upon the various famous earthenware and porcelain works of the kingdom, but little had been done in that direction, and the information I got together from time to time had to be procured from original sources, by prolonged visits to the places themselves and by numberless applications to all sorts of people from whom even scraps of reliable matter could be obtained. Books on the subject were not many, and the information they contained on English Ceramics was meagre in the extreme. Since then numerous workers have sprung up, and their published volumes—many of them sumptuous and truly valuable works—attest strongly to the interest and pains they have taken in the subject. To all these, whoever they may be, the world owes a debt of gratitude for devoting their time and their talents to so important a branch of study. To each of them I tender my own thanks for having devoted themselves to the elucidation of one of my favourite pursuits, and for having given to the world the result of their labours. No work has, however, until now been entirely devoted to the one subject of British Ceramics, and I feel therefore that in presenting my present volumes to the public I am only carrying out the plan I at first laid down, and am[ix] not even in the slightest degree encroaching on the province of any other writer.

I think I may safely say there is scarcely a manufacturer—even if there be one at all—in the length and breadth of the kingdom with whom I have not frequently communicated in the progress of this work. Except in some few solitary instances I have received the information I have sought, and my inquiries have met with the most cordial and ready response.

To all those who have thus assisted me with information or otherwise, and especially to my friend Mr. Goss, who has greatly assisted me over the onerous task of some of the Staffordshire potteries, I offer my warmest thanks; and to those few others, who from inattention, shortsightedness, or other cause, have not responded to my inquiries, I would express my sorrow if, through that inattention on their part, I have been unable to give as full particulars regarding their potteries as I could have wished. To thank by name those who have assisted me with information would require a long list indeed; I therefore tender my acknowledgments to all in the one emphatic good old English expression—“Thank you!”

LLEWELLYNN JEWITT.

Winster Hall, Derbyshire.

November, 1877.

The history of the ceramic art in our own country is one of intense interest and of paramount importance. I open my present work, which I intend to devote to its consideration, with this assertion, and before it is done I hope I shall have proved its truth.

It is a subject which may be treated in more ways than one. It may be considered technically, i.e. with regard to manipulation, to the mixing of bodies and glazes, and the practical parts of the potter’s art; or historically, so as to treat of the introduction and progress of the art in this country, its gradual extension and improvement, the chief seats of its operations, and the characteristics of the productions of each age and place. To neither of these do I purpose confining myself; but to the latter I shall, here and there, mix up just sufficient of the former to render it more intelligible and useful. The main ingredients of the “body”—to use a potter’s term—of my work will be history, description, and biography, with just sufficient technicology to temper it and give it its proper tenacity and consistency. For the facts relating to the earliest examples of that art, from which I shall deduce my narrative, I rely upon actual researches into grave-mounds and otherwise, undertaken by myself or by others; and for the rest—those relating to the art in mediæval and later times—upon constant inquirings and searchings and readings carried on, with this special end in view, during the course of many years.

It is impossible to show when the potter’s art was first invented or when it was first brought into use in this island; but that it was practised here in the very earliest days of its being inhabited by its[2] savage population can be abundantly proved. To this pre-historic period, then, I shall first direct attention; and then endeavour to trace the history of the art down from the Celtic to the Romano-British period; from the time of the Romans to the Anglo-Saxons and Normans; and so gradually come downwards through mediæval to modern times, giving, under each separate seat of the more modern manufacture, historical notices of the works and their founders, and descriptive particulars of the more characteristic of their productions.

The practice of the fictile art in England dates back, as I have already said, to a very remote period—that of its Celtic or ancient British population, by whom there is abundant evidence it was much esteemed. It is pleasant to know, and to be able indisputably to prove, that from those early days down to the present time the art has, through a long succession of ages, continued with more or less skill, to be observed among us, and that thus in pottery, as in nothing else, an unbroken chain, connecting us in our present high state of civilisation with our remote barbarian forefathers of the stone age, exists. The weapons and other implements of imperishable stone and flint have, long ages ago, died out, and any possible connection between them and the weapons or tools of our own day has died with them; but the vessels of simple clay have an abiding-place with us which has lasted without a break until now, and will yet last for ever. Hitherto the course of the potter’s art has been one of constant and gradual improvement; but its capabilities for further development are almost unbounded, and another generation will witness advances of which we can now but dimly dream.

[3]

Among the ancient Britons, vessels of clay were formed for sepulchral and other uses, and it is entirely to their grave-mounds that we are indebted for the examples which have survived to our time. It is in the course of examination of these mounds that these fictile remains have been brought to light; and it is by a careful examination of these alone, and by constant comparison of the “finds” of one locality with the discoveries of another, that a proper estimate of their character has been, or can be, drawn.

The pottery of this period may be safely arranged in four classes[1], viz.—1. Sepulchral or Cinerary Urns, which have been made for and have contained, or been inverted over, calcined human bones; 2. Drinking Cups, which, in a similar manner, are supposed to have contained some liquid to be placed with the dead body; 3. Food Vessels (so called), which are supposed to have contained an offering of food, and which are more usually found with unburnt bodies than along with interments by cremation; 4. Immolation Urns, (erroneously called Incense Cups by Sir R. Colt Hoare for want of more knowledge of their use), which are very small vessels, found only with burnt bones (and usually also containing them), placed in the mouths of, or close by, the larger cinerary urns.[4] These latter I believe to have been simply small urns intended to receive the ashes of the infant, perhaps sacrificed at the death of its mother, so as to admit of being placed within the larger urn containing the ashes of the parent: I venture, therefore, to name them “Immolation Urns.”

No notice of the pottery of this period is to be found in ancient writers, if we except the allusion of Strabo,[2] who says that one of the commodities with which the Phœnicians traded to the Cassiterides was earthenware. But in connection with this it is necessary to state that no example of pottery which can possibly be traced to Phœnician origin has as yet been found in any of the hundreds of barrows which have been opened.

The pottery exhibits considerable difference, both in clay, in size, and in ornamentation. Those presumed to be the oldest are of coarse clay mixed with small pebbles and sand; the later ones of a somewhat less clumsy form, and perhaps a finer mixture of clays. They are entirely wrought by hand without the assistance of the wheel, and are mostly very thick and clumsy. They are very imperfectly fired, having probably been baked on the funeral pyre.

In the examination of barrows of this period it not unfrequently happens that the spot where the funeral pyre has been lit can very clearly be perceived. In these instances the ground beneath is generally found to be burned to some considerable depth; sometimes, indeed, it is burned to a fine red colour, and approaches in[5] texture somewhat to that of brick. Where it was intended that the remains should be placed in an urn for interment, it appears, from careful examinations which have been made, that the urn being formed of clay—most probably, judging from the delicacy of touch, and from the impress of fingers which occasionally remains, by the females of the tribe—and ornamented according to the taste of the manipulator, was placed in the funeral fire and there baked, while the body of the deceased was being consumed. The remains of the calcined bones, the flints, &c., were then gathered up together, and placed in the urn; over which the mound was next raised.

From their imperfect firing, the vessels of this period are usually called “sun-baked” or “sun-dried;” but this is a grave error, as any one conversant with examples cannot fail, on careful examination, to see. If the vessels were “sun-baked” only, their burial in the earth—in the tumuli wherein, some two thousand years ago, they were deposited, and where they have all that time remained—would soon soften them, and they would, ages ago, have returned to their old clayey consistency. As it is, the urns have remained of their original form, and although, from imperfect baking, they are sometimes found partially softened, they still retain their form, and soon regain their original hardness. They bear abundant evidence of the action of fire, and are, indeed, sometimes sufficiently burned for the clay to have attained a red colour—a result which no “sunbaking”[6] could produce. They are mostly of an earthy brown colour outside, and almost black in fracture, and many of the cinerary urns bear internal and unmistakable evidence of having been filled with the burnt bones and ashes of the deceased, while those ashes were of a glowing and intense heat. They were, most probably, fashioned by the females of the tribe, on the death of their relative, from the clay to be found nearest to the spot, and baked on or by the funeral pyre. The glowing ashes and bones were then, as I have already stated, collected together, and placed in the urn, and the flint implements, and occasionally other relics belonging to the deceased, deposited along with them. In some instances, however, it is probable that even the cinerary urns were burned in a separate fire, as were the “drinking cups,” which are usually fired to a much harder degree than they are. No kiln, or anything approaching to one, however, could of course have been used.

The Cinerary or Sepulchral Urns vary very considerably in size, in form, in ornamentation, and in material—the latter, naturally, depending on the locality where the urns were made; and, as a[7] general rule, they differ also in the different tribes. Those which are supposed to be the most ancient, from the fact of their frequently containing flint instruments along with the calcined bones, are of large size, ranging from nine or ten, to sixteen or eighteen inches in height. Those which are considered to belong to a somewhat later period, when cremation had again become general, are of a smaller size, and of a somewhat finer texture. With them objects of flint are rarely found, but articles of bronze are occasionally discovered. Sometimes they are wide at the mouth, without any overlapping rim; at others they are characterised by a deeply overlapping lip or rim; others are more of “flower-pot” form, with encircling raised bands, while others again are contracted inwardly at the mouth by curved rims. Some also have loops at the sides. The ornamentation is produced chiefly by incised lines, or punctures, or by lines, &c., produced by indenting into the soft clay a twisted thong (Fig. 37). Encircling and zig-zag lines of[8] various forms, reticulated and lozenge-formed patterns, and rows of indentations, are the usual decorations; but occasionally, as at West Kennet and Launceston Heath, clearly defined patterns are produced by the finger or thumb nail.

The more usual of the forms will be best understood by the engraved examples, selected from the proceeds of many barrow openings in different parts of the kingdom.

[9]

The four urns (Fig. 2, 3, 4, and 6) are characteristic examples of the variety with the broad or deep overlapping border or rim. The first of these has the pattern incised in the soft clay, that on the rim being in diagonal lines, and the central portion reticulated. The second has the herring-bone or chevron ornament around its rim, and the third example is ornamented with horizontal and vertical lines alternately on its rim, and zig-zagged, filled in with horizontal and crossed, lines on the central part. The lines in this are all produced by indenting a twisted thong into the clay while in a soft state. Fig. 16 has its ornamentation indented with twisted thongs in “herring-bone” pattern both on the outside and inside the rim and around the central part. Fig. 8 has a central band as well as overhanging lip. Figs. 11 and 13, from Dorsetshire barrows,[3] are of different form, the ornamentation consisting of incised lines and impressed thumbmarks, &c. The remaining engravings also give excellent examples of other forms and varieties of these sepulchral vessels. Figs. 9 and 10 have the upper part curved, and almost approaching to cup shape, and Fig. 7 has raised bands; in Fig. 14 the upper parts are hollowed out; and in Fig. 15 the upper part is marked with lozenges. Figs. 19 and 23 are ornamented with indented dots produced by pressing the end of a stick or other substance into the soft clay. Fig. 23 has these dots in zig-zag lines.

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

Fig. 21 has the reticulated lines produced by indentations from twisted thongs. Fig. 22 is a remarkably fine example. Around its upper portion are encircling lines, between which is the usual zig-zag ornament. Around the central band, too, are encircling lines, between which are a series of vertical zig-zag lines. The whole of the ornamentation has been produced by twisted thongs; some, however, being of tighter twist than others. Inside, the rim is ornamented by encircling and diagonal lines. It has on[15] its central band four projecting handles or loops, which are pierced. Nine other looped examples, from Cornwall, are shown on Figs. 5, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, and 35;[4] along with other examples from[16] the same county. Figs. 18 and 20 are two “Immolation Urns,” found along with, or in, Figs. 19 and 21. Fig. 38 shows a kind of ear or handle on the side of another vessel.

The Drinking Cups are usually of tall form, globular in the lower[17] half, contracted in the middle, and expanding at the mouth. In ornamentation they are more elaborate than the cinerary urns, many of them, in fact, being covered over their entire surface with impressed or incised patterns, frequently of considerable delicacy in manipulation, and always of a finer and higher quality than those of the other descriptions of pottery. Figs. 39 to 48 will show some of the varieties both of form and style of decoration. Instances have been known in which a kind of incrustation has been very perceptible on the inner surface, thus showing that their use as vessels for holding liquor is certain; the incrustation being produced by the gradual drying up of the liquid with which they had been filled when placed with the dead body.

[18]

Fig. 47, which, however, may perhaps be a food vessel, has the unusual feature of being ornamented on the bottom quite as elaborately as around its sides. The bottom is shown on Fig. 48. The whole of the ornamentation has been produced by the indentation of twisted thongs into the pliant clay.

Fig. 39, from Fimber, is richly and elaborately ornamented over its entire surface with the most delicate indentations, and is (with Fig. 42) one of the best and most perfect of known examples. When found it stood close to the shoulders of the skeleton of a strong-boned, middle-aged, man, which lay on the right side. Fig. 42 is equally as elaborate in ornamentation, and as good in form. Like the former, it is ornamented by thong indentations. Fig. 41 is of the same general shape, but not so elaborate in design; the greater portion of the ornamentation consisting of reticulated and lozenge patterns. Fig. 45 is also a remarkably good example, and is about equal in point of ornament with Fig. 46. Fig. 40 is of very different form, as are also Figs. 43 and 44. The ornamentation on the first of these is produced in the usual way, and on the second, by simple indentations. Other forms of drinking cups are met with, but these are the most usual.

The Food Vessels—small urns, so called because they were probably intended to contain an offering of food—are of various forms and sizes, and are, in point of decoration, more or less elaborate. They are usually small at the bottom, and gradually swell out until[19] they become, frequently, wider at the mouth than they are in height. They are formed of clay of much the same kind as the other vessels, and are fired to about the same degree of hardness. Figs. 49 to 57 will show their general form and style of decoration. Figs. 49 and 50 were found in the same barrow, and yet, as will be seen, exhibit very different styles of ornamentation. The first of these is four and three quarter inches in height, and five and a half inches in diameter at the top. It is richly ornamented with the usual diagonal and herring-bone lines, formed by twisted thongs impressed into the soft clay, in its upper part. Around the body of the urn itself, however, is a pattern of lozenge form, very unusual on vessels of this period. The second is five and a quarter inches in[21] height, and six and a quarter inches in diameter at the top. It is very richly ornamented.

Fig. 53 has the pattern rudely indented over its whole surface. Fig. 51 is coarse and rude, and the pattern very simple. Figs. 54, 55, and 57 are of different character, and have a kind of handle or projecting stud on four sides. They are among the most elaborate, in point of ornamentation, of any of these interesting vessels, of which other forms besides those engraved have occasionally been found. On Wykeham Moor, in Yorkshire the Rev. Canon Greenwell has brought to light some urns of a different character, and of greater width at the mouth.

The diminutive vessels, usually called (though, as I have said, erroneously) “Incense Cups,” but which I propose to call “Immolation Urns,” are ornamented in the same manner as the other pottery. The form, as will be seen from Figs. 58 to 75, varies much, from a plain salt-cellar like cup to the more elaborately[22] rimmed vase. Three examples (Figs. 68, 70, and 75) have the very unusual appendage of a handle at one side; others have holes in their sides, as if for suspension, and I suspect this has been the case in the urn containing the ashes of the mother. Fig. 67 has four handles.

Holes for, as supposed, suspension, are shown in Figs. 58, 72, and 74; these have each two of these small perforations in the side. Others, as in Figs. 64 and 67, have perforated loops at their sides. Fig. 65 is of unusual form, having a broad rim round its mouth; it is elaborately ornamented. Figs. 5, 18 and 20 are shown with the urns with which they were found.

Other forms of these interesting little vessels, which generally range from an inch and a half to three inches in height, occur. They will be best understood from the engravings. One of these (Fig. 72), for the purpose of showing its pattern more carefully, is engraved of its FULL SIZE. It is a remarkable example, and has its bottom ornamented as well as its sides and rim, which are shown on Figs. 73 and 74. When found it was filled with burnt bones, probably of an infant. On one side were two perforations.

Among the unusual forms of Celtic pottery may be named the curious examples (Figs. 76 and 77) one of which is a kind of drinking mug with a handle, and the other is supported on feet. Fig. 76, and another of somewhat similar kind in the Ely Museum, are the only two known examples of this form of vessel, and they will be seen to be very richly ornamented.[23] Fig. 76 is in the Bateman collection, as is also Fig. 77. It is one of the class of vessels hitherto called incense cups, and is, I believe, unique—no other example on feet having come under my notice.

During the Romano-British period the fictile art was much practised in England, and not only was a large variety of wares produced, but an almost endless number of vessels were made. Potworks were established in many parts of the kingdom, some of which grew to very large dimensions, while others of a less important character and size still made wares of extremely good quality. The three principal potteries—at least so far as present researches have enabled us to judge—in England at this period were those on the Medway, in the Upchurch marshes, extending towards Sheerness, in Kent; the Durobrivian potteries on the river Nen, in Northamptonshire; and the Salopian potteries on the Severn, in Shropshire. Smaller pot works, however, being scattered over various parts of the kingdom.

With the well-known “Samian Ware,” the finest and most beautiful of the pottery of the Romans which is found in this country, I have, of course, nothing to do in my present work; for, although found so frequently and so abundantly in England, it was not manufactured here, and therefore does not come within its scope. I proceed, therefore, to speak of the various English seats of the manufacture.

Upchurch Ware.—The district wherein this pottery was made and is found so abundantly, is of five or six miles in length, and from one to two in breadth; and over the whole of this tract of country, at a distance of some few feet below the surface, a regular layer of remains of Roman fictile art occurs. To Mr. C. Roach Smith is due the greatest credit of bringing these under notice:—“There can be no doubt,” says Mr. Wright, “not only from the extent of ground covered by the potteries, but from the frequent[25] occurrence of the sort of pottery made here, among Roman remains in Britain belonging to different periods, that these potteries were in full activity during the whole extent of the Roman period. The site of the kilns was moved as the clay was used up, and at the same time the refuse pottery was thrown on the ground behind them, so that, when at last abandoned, this extensive site presented a surface of ground covered almost entirely by a bed of refuse pottery.” Here, then, the Roman figuli exercised, more extensively than anywhere else in England their art, and continued its practice for a long series of years. In those days the ground would of course be firm and dry. Since then, as is usually the case in so long a number of years, the soil has accumulated to the thickness of about three feet—the inroads which the Medway is constantly making upon it forming the creeks, and continually disclosing the remains left by the potters.

The ware made at Upchurch must have been in considerable repute, for it is found in Roman localities in most parts of the kingdom. On Roman sites in France and Germany and in Flanders, &c., wares of a precisely similar kind are found, and show that it is probable they were simultaneously made at different places. The prevailing colour of the ware is a bluish or greyish black, with a smooth and rather shining surface. A good deal, however, is of a dark drab colour. The black colour has been produced by the process of “firing” in “smother kilns”—a process well known to potters. The forms of the vessels, as well as the sizes, vary to a surprising extent, but they are all remarkable for the gracefulness and elegance[26] of their outline, and, in many instances, for the simplicity and effective character of the patterns with which they are decorated. The decorations consist chiefly of circles or semi-circles; lines, vertical or otherwise; bands, and numbers of raised dots arranged in a variety of ways. The clay used is fine, and the vessels are light and thin, and remarkably well “potted.”

The instruments used in the ornamentation of this pottery appear to have been of a very rude description, and were, as it seems, chiefly mere sticks, some sharpened to a point, and others with a transverse section cut into notches. The former were used in tracing the lines already described; the latter had the section formed into a square or rhomboid, the surface of which was cut into parallel lines crossing each other so as to form a dotted figure, and this was stamped on the surface of the pottery in various combinations and arrangements. Sometimes these dots are arranged so as to form bands;[5] and in[27] others simply “patch” ornaments. Other vessels were covered with reticulation, the lines being simply scratched into the surface of the clay; and others have bands of serrated lines.

The forms of some of the vessels from the Upchurch works will be seen on Fig. 78, and a series of other characteristic examples are given on Figs. 79 to 95.

One example (Fig. 80) is ornamented with half-circles traced on the clay as with compasses, from which run downwards rows of incised lines. On Fig. 78 is an example of much the same character of ornamentation although different in form.

Figs. 81, 85, 86, 87, and 88 are of different form, and are ornamented with raised dots in bands and patches; while 83 and 84 are “engine turned.” They are of remarkably elegant form.

Figs. 91, 92, 93, and 95 are more bottle shaped—in fact, approaching somewhat to the form of the mediæval bellarmine. Many varieties of this general form have been found in the marshes and elsewhere. Fig. 89 is particularly simple and elegant in shape, as are also several shown in the groups on this and the preceding pages. Among these is an example of another variety of ornamentation common to the Upchurch ware. It is formed by diagonal intersecting lines, and in form is much the same as the ordinary kind of Roman cinerary urns. In[28] the group, Fig. 94, are some examples of Upchurch and other wares.

No kilns have as yet been discovered in the Upchurch marshes, but doubtless further researches will yet bring them to light. Mr. Roach Smith, to whose incessant labours we owe the principal notices of these potteries, has discovered the remains of the extensive village of the potters, with traces of their habitations and of their graves, in the higher ground bordering on the marshes.

Castor Ware, or Durobrivian Ware, as it is variously called, is the production of the extensive Romano-British potteries on the river Nen, in Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire; near Castor and Chesterton, in those counties respectively. In this locality, as the names of Chesterton and Castor undeniably prove to have been the case, an important settlement of the Romans was made, and excavations have brought to light the remains of a considerable town, and in connection with it, of a settlement of potters with the remains of their works extending over a district many miles in extent.

The great interest attaching to this locality is in the fact that this was not the first, but the first well ascertained discovery of a Roman pot-manufactory in this kingdom, and that at this spot the first kilns of that period have been uncovered, and the processes adopted by the Roman figuli brought to light.

The situation of the potteries was well chosen for carrying on an extensive trade with distant parts of the kingdom, and from researches searches which were made, the late Mr. Artis, to whom the discovery is due, computed that probably two thousand people had been employed in the fabrication of fictile vessels. It is on the line of one of the most important of the Roman roads—the Ermyn street—and close to the navigable river Nen; and that the products of the manufactory were supplied to places throughout the kingdom is abundantly testified by the remains which are almost invariably found in course of excavations wherever Roman occupation is known. Mr. Artis unfortunately, although he published a fine[29] folio volume of plates[6] of the more remarkable of the objects he discovered, never issued the descriptive and historical text which was intended to accompany it. The great bulk of the information he had gleaned he never committed to paper, and consequently it died with him. Mr. Artis, however, communicated some valuable particulars to Mr. C. Roach Smith, and these have been made public by him in the “Journal of the British Archæological Association”[7] and in the “Collectanea Antiqua.”[8] Mr. Artis in one of these says that during an examination of the pigments used by the Roman potters of Castor and its neighbourhood, he was “led to the conclusion that the blue and slate-coloured vessels met with here in such abundance were coloured by suffocating the fire of the kiln at the time when its contents had acquired a degree of heat sufficient to insure uniformity of colour. I had so firmly made up my mind on the process of manufacturing and firing this peculiar kind of earthenware, that I had denominated the kilns in which it had been fired “smother kilns.” The mode of manufacturing the bricks of which these kilns are made is worthy of notice. The clay was previously mixed with about one-third of rye in the chaff, which being consumed by the fire, left cavities in the room of the grains. This might have been intended to modify expansion and contraction, as well as to assist in the gradual distribution of the colouring vapour. The mouth of the furnace and the top of the kiln were no doubt stopped: thus we find every part of the kiln, from the inside wall to the mouth on the outside, and every part of the clay wrappers of the domes penetrated with the colouring exhalation.”

[30]

The researches further proved that the colour could not be attributed to any metallic oxide (although it must be confessed that in many instances the surface has a strongly developed metallic appearance) either in the clay itself or applied externally, and this conclusion is confirmed by the appearance of the clay wrappers of the dome of the kilns; and it may be added, the colour is so fugitive that it is expelled entirely, by submitting the pottery to an open fire. During the examination of the Upchurch pottery, Mr. Artis remarked that he thought a coarse kind of sedge had been used in the manufactory. His practical eye alone guided him to this conclusion, for he had never visited the site, and was quite unaware that below the strata of broken vessels, a layer of sedge peat is in several places visible. The same kind of arrangement probably obtained pretty generally with the Roman potters.

The kilns for firing the Castor ware, discovered by Mr. Artis, are among the most interesting of all the remains of Roman arts which have been brought to light. The kilns which were removed in the course of the investigations were “all constituted on the same principle: a circular hole was dug from three to four feet deep, and four in diameter, and walled round to the height of two feet. A furnace, one-third of the kiln in length, communicated with the side. In the centre of the circle so formed was an oval pedestal, the height of the sides, with the end pointing to the mouth of the furnace. Upon this pedestal and side walls the floor of the kiln rests. It was[31] formed of perforated angular bricks, meeting at one point in the centre; the furnace was arched with bricks, moulded for the purpose; the side of the kiln was constructed with curved bricks set edgeways (see Fig. 100) in a thick slip (the same material made into a thin mortar) to the height of two feet. The process of packing the vessels and securing uniform heat in firing the ware was the same in the two different kinds of kilns—namely, that before described, called ‘smother kiln,’ and that for various other kinds of pottery. They were first carefully loose-packed with the articles to be fired, up to the height of the side walls. The circumference of the bulk was then gradually diminished, and finished in the shape of a dome. As this arrangement progressed, an attendant seems to have followed the packer, and thinly covered a layer of pots with coarse hay or grass. He then took some thin clay, the size of his hand, and laid it flat over the grass upon the vessels: he then placed more grass on the edge of the clay just laid on—then more clay—and so on until he had completed the circle. By this time the packer would have raised another tier of pots, the plasterer following as before, hanging the grass over the top edge of the last layer of plasters, until he had reached the top, in which a small aperture was left, and the clay nipped round the edge; another coating would then be laid on as before described. Directly after, gravel or loam was thrown up against the side wall where the clay wrappers were commenced—probably to secure the bricks and the clay coating. The kiln was[32] then fired with wood.[9] In consequence of the care taken to place grass between the edges of the wrappers, they could be unpacked in the same size pieces as when laid on in a plastic state; and thus the danger in breaking the coat to obtain the contents of the kiln could be obviated. In the course of my excavations I discovered a curiously constructed furnace, of which I have never before or since met an example. Over it had been placed two circular vessels; the next above the furnace was a third less than the other, which would hold about eight gallons; the fire passed partly under both of them, the smoke escaping by a smoothly-plastered flue, from seven to eight inches wide. The vessels were suspended by the rims fitting into a circular groove or rabbet, formed for the purpose. They contained pottery, both perfect and fragmentary. It is probable they had covers, and I am inclined to think were used for glazing peculiar kinds of the immense quantities of ornamented ware made in this district. Its contiguity to one of the workshops in which the glaze (oxide of iron) and other pigments were found confirms this opinion.”

Fig. 102 is a kiln of a different construction. “In it, instead of modelling or moulding bricks for the kiln, the potters, after forming a tolerably round shaft, commenced plastering it three inches thick with clay, prepared for that purpose, leaving a flange twenty inches above the furnace floor to receive the floor of the kiln; a mode of construction unnoticed by me before in these kilns. In the centre was placed an oval pedestal, for the double purpose of dividing the fire and of giving support to the centre of the floor. To attach the pedestal to the back of the kiln, and to shut out the cold air which would lodge in the angle formed by the pedestal being so placed, the angle was filled with coarse materials, which were stopped up with clay, so as to draw the flame more towards the centre, and induce a union with the flame and heat entering the front part of the kiln.”[33] The more usual plan with the potters of this district in packing their kilns was, when the contents had reached the surface of the earth, to form a dome by covering the urns and vases lightly with dry grass, sedge, or the like, and plastering it over with patches of prepared clay, divided by strewing a small quantity of hay between each portion to facilitate removal. In place of this usual process, in this kiln bricks were used of an oblong shape, four inches by two and a half inches, wedge-shaped at one end, with a sufficient curve to traverse the circumference when set edgeways, with the wedge ends lapped over each other. The sides would be thus raised for three or four courses or more, as circumstances might require, and probably be afterwards backed up with loose earth. These bricks were modelled and kneaded with chaff and grain.”[10] The numbers indicate as follows:—1, front of the pedestal supporting the floor of the kiln; 2 2, slopes, probably intended to produce a more uniform heat; 3 3, part of the kiln floor; 4, bricks, before used; 5, area of the furnace; 6, mouth of furnace; 7, wall of kiln; 8, top of the pedestal. The mouth of the furnace, No. 6, was arched over.

The ware of the Durobrivian potteries was superior both in style of art and in form and material to that of Upchurch, and has an especial interest over it in the fact that it bears figures and various ornaments in relief, in the same manner as on the Samian ware. The ornament, especially the scrolls, &c., were laid on “in slip.” The vessel, after having been thrown on the wheel, would be allowed to become somewhat firm, but only sufficiently so for the purpose of the lathe. In the indented ware, the indenting would have to be performed with the vessel in as pliable a state as it could be taken from the lathe. A thick slip of the same body would then be procured, and the ornamentation would proceed.

“The vessels—on which are displayed a variety of hunting subjects, representations of fishes, scrolls, and human figures—were all glazed after the figures were laid on; where, however, the decorations are white, the vessels were glazed before the ornaments were added. Ornamenting with figures of animals was effected by means of sharp and blunt skewer instruments and a slip of suitable consistency. These instruments seem to have been of two kinds—one thick enough to carry sufficient slip for the nose, neck, body, and front thigh; the other of a more delicate kind, for a thinner slip, for the tongue, lower jaws, eye, fore and hind legs, and tail. There seems to have[35] been no retouching, after the slip trailed from the instrument. Field sports seem to have been favourite subjects with our Romano-British artists. The representations of deer and hare hunts are good and spirited; the courage and energy of the hounds, and the distress of the hunted animals are given with great skill and fidelity, especially when the simple and off-handed process by which they must have been executed is taken into consideration.”[11]

Two vessels with these hunting subjects are given in Figs. 108[37] and 110; and other designs of this character, exhibiting stag and hare hunts, are shown on Figs. 103 to 109.

Gladiatorial combats are also frequent subjects for representation on the Castor vases. One of these is given on Fig. 111, which represents one side of the celebrated “Colchester vase;” Fig. 103 being the design of another of its sides. The next engraving (Fig. 112) shows the chariot race in the Roman racecourse or stadium—the quadriga being well, although rudely, fashioned, and the position both of the horses and charioteer boldly conceived. Mythological subjects were also common. One of these, of the indented form, restored from fragments, is given in the accompanying engraving (Fig. 113).

Another and equally pleasing variety of ornamentation, and one peculiar, it may be said, to the Durobrivian potteries, is that whereon the pattern consists of scrolls and flowers in white slip on the dark bluish black ground. The effect of these simple patterns, which are generally graceful and always elegantly formed, is remarkably pleasing. Examples of these are given on Figs. 114 to 124, which will serve to show the general style of this kind of decoration. Figs. 125 to 128 are admirable examples of the indented form of vessel. Many other shapes and varieties of Castor ware might be adduced, but the illustrations I have given will be sufficient to give a clear insight into their general characteristics.

[38]

[39]

One of the most curious and interesting urns of this ware (Fig. 129) was dug up in Leicester in 1869, and is preserved in the museum of that town. It is of a fine rich deep colour, with the pattern in white slip, and has borne an inscription, also in slip, the only letters of which now remaining are M E i I VI. In the same museum, among other varieties of Romano-British ware, are the beautiful vessels shown on Figs. 132, 133, 134. There are also fragments of ware which seem to point at pottery which I believe, at one period of Roman occupation, existed in the neighbourhood of Leicester.

Potters’ kilns of the Romano-British period have been found in other places, but those at Castor are the most perfect, and in every way the best. Indeed, the others may be said, more appropriately perhaps, to be indications of kilns rather than the kilns themselves. A curious record of the discovery of a kiln in London, at the north-west of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in 1677, by John Conyers, a collector of antiquities, is preserved in the British Museum,[12] and has been published by Mr. Roach Smith,[13] the eminent archæologist, to whom the antiquarian world is indebted for so much valuable information concerning Roman antiquities. This very curious and valuable record is as follows, in the handwriting of Conyers, and the accompanying engraving is carefully reduced (see Fig. 138) from Conyers’ own drawing:—

“This kill was full of the coarser[14] sorts of potts or cullings,[15] so that few were saved whole, viz., lamps, bottles, urnes, dishes.

“The forme of a kill in which the olde Romans’ lamps, urnes, and other earthen pottes and vessels was burnt, and some left in the[40] kill; and that within a unstired, loamy ground about 26 foot deep near about the place where the Market House stood in Oliver’s tyme, the discovery made anno 1677 at the digging the foundacion of the north east part of St. Paull’s, London, among gravel pitts and loam pitts, where the ground had been at tymes raised over it 3 or 4 tymes, and so many 8 foote storyes or depths of coffins lay over the loamy kill, the lowest coffins made of chalk; and this supposed to be before or about Domitian the emperor’s tyme.

“Of these (kilns) 4 severall had been made in the sandy loam on the ground in the fashion of a cross foundacion and only this height standing, viz. 5 foot from topp to bottom and better; and as many feet in breadth; and had no other matter for its form and building but the outward loame as it naturally lays, crusted hardish by the heat burning the loame redd like brick. The floor in the middle supported by and cut out of loame, and helped with old-fashioned Roman tyles shards, but very few, and such as I have seen used for repositorys for urns in the fashion of like ovens, and they plastered within with a reddish mortar or tarris; but here was no mortar, but only the sandy loam for cement:

“observed and thus described

“by Joⁿ Conyers, Apothecary.”

In accordance with the above description, the sketch by Conyers shows also the four kilns placed crosswise, leaving ample space in the centre for the workmen. The vessels found in the kiln are thus described by Conyers, who also made sketches of them, which are preserved along with his MS., and have been engraved in the “Collectanea Antiqua:”—

“1. 1 quart earthen dish.—2. 2 gallons, whitish.—3. 4 quart bason, whitish.—4. 8 ounce censer or lamp, whitish earth.—5. 2 quart colinder, whitish.—6. 2 pint lipp waterpott.—7. Lamp, or censer, reddish.—8. 3 pint urne.—9. 3 quarts urne, whitish.—10. 2 ounce lamp, gilded with electrum.—11. 2 quart, white.—12. 1 pint bottle.—13. 2 pint black urne.—14. 1 pint urne, black.—15. 6 ounce urne.—16. 3 quart urne, blewish.—17. Half pint urne, electrum Britan.—18. 1 pint dish, blewish.—19. 1 ounce urne, whitish.—20. 3 ounce urne, cinamon collour.—All these a sort of earth almost like crucibles, except the black, will endure the fire like brass, as in this day in use about Poland.”

From the drawings which accompany these descriptions, the Romano-British origin of the examples found actually in the kiln[41] is placed beyond doubt. Most of them are precisely the same types as hundreds of fragments which have been found all over London, and are the common table and culinary ware of the period. Some bear a very striking resemblance to the vessels from the Upchurch pottery. Amongst them is a mortarium. Most of the vessels are plain, but some are ornamented with rows of dots, &c., and others with a reticulated pattern. The forms are elegant and simple.

In another part of his MS. Conyers describes other kinds of pottery found during the excavations. “Now these pottsherds,” he writes, “are some glass and some potts like broken urns, which were curiously laid on the outside with like thorne pricks of rose trees and in the manner of raised work: this upon potts of murry collour, and here and there grey houndes and stags and hares all in raised work: other of these cinamon collour urne fashion and were as gilded with gold but vaded: some of strange fashioned juggs the sides bent in so as to be six squares, and these raised work upon them and curiously pinched as curious raisers of paist may imitate: some like black earth for pudding panns; one the outside indented and crossed quincunx fashion. Now many of these potts of the finer kind are lite and thinn and these workes raised or indented were instead of collours; yet I find they had some odd collours, not blew, in those tymes, and a way of glazing different to what now; and here takes notice that the redd earth before mencioned bore away the belle.”

The manuscript contains also the following note:—

“The labourers toulde me of some remains of other such kinds of small kills that was found up and down nere the place of the other pott kills, and these had a funnel to convey smoke which might serve for glass furnaces, for though not anny potts with glass in it whole in the furnaces was there found, yet broken crucibles or tests for melting of glass, together with boltered glass such as is to be seen remaining at glass houses amongst the broken glass, which was glass spoyled in the making, was there found; but not plenty, and especially coloured and prepared for jewel-like ornament, but mostly such as for cruetts or glasses with a lipp to drop withall, and that a greenish light blew collour; and of any sort of glass there was but little.”

Remains of potteries of this period have also been discovered in Norfolk (between Brixton and Brampton); at Botham in Lincolnshire; in Somersetshire; at Worcester; at Marlborough; at Sibson; at various places in Yorkshire; in Shropshire; in Oxfordshire;[42] in the New Forest, Hampshire; at Colchester, in Essex; at Wilderspool, near Warrington; and in many other parts of the kingdom. Of some of these I shall now proceed briefly to speak.

To the Shropshire potteries—those of the clays of the Severn Valley, probably at Brosely,—a vast number of varieties of vessels are to be traced; and it is, as I shall show in a later chapter, interesting to know that the same bed of clay which at the present day produces articles of daily use, produced fifteen hundred years ago the vessels for the table, &c., of the inhabitants of the then great neighbouring city of Uriconium. In the excavations which have been undertaken on the site of this ruined city immense quantities of fragments of pottery have been found, and, with the exception of the Samian ware and the[43] Durobrivian ware, it is not too much, perhaps, to say that the whole, or nearly so, has been made in the Severn Valley. Of these wares, two sorts especially are found in considerable abundance; the one white, the other of a rather light red colour. The white, which is made of what is commonly called Brosely clay, and is rather coarse in texture, consists chiefly of rather handsomely shaped jugs or bellarmine-shaped vessels, of different sizes, the general shape of which somewhat resembles Fig. 96; of Mortaria; and of bowls of different shapes and sizes, which are often painted with stripes of red and yellow. The other variety, the red Romano-Salopian ware, is also made from one of the clays of the Severn Valley, but is of finer texture, and consists principally of jugs not dissimilar to those in the[44] white ware, except in a very different form of mouth; and of bowl-shaped colanders.[16]

Two examples of Romano-Salopian ware—the first of the white, and the second of the red variety—are given on Fig. 139, and on Fig. 140 is represented a group of vessels of this make, from the cemetery at Uriconium.

The potteries of the New Forest in Hampshire, for a lucid account of which we are indebted to Mr. Wise,[17] were of great extent, and, as is proved by the researches which have been made on their sites, of considerable importance. The potteries were noticed in 1853 by the Rev. J. P. Bartlett,[18] who prepared an account of his researches for the Society of Antiquaries, and since that period both that gentleman and Mr. Wise have with great success continued their explorations. The names of the localities where these ancient potteries exist—Crockle (crock kiln or crock hill) and Panshard—are highly suggestive. During the excavations kilns were found in a perfect state. The kiln at Crockle was circular, and measured six yards in circumference, its shape being well defined by small hand-formed masses of red brick-earth. The floor, about two feet below the natural surface of the ground, was paved with a layer of sand-stones, some of them cut into a circular shape so as to fit the kiln, the upper surfaces being tooled, whilst the under remained in their original state. At the potteries at Audenwood no kilns were discovered; but at Sloden, where the works cover several acres, “two large mounds marking the sites of kilns” are remaining, along with the sites of potters’ huts, &c. At[46] Island Thorn more kilns and innumerable fragments of vessels of various kinds were discovered. In Pitts Enclosure, besides mounds opened by Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Wise discovered in one mound five kilns, ranged in a semicircle, and paved with irregular masses of sand-stone. They were close together, separated only by mounds of the natural soil. Besides fragments of various vessels, “two distinct heaps of white and fawn-coloured clay and red earth, placed ready for mixing, and a third of the two worked together, fit for the immediate use of the potter,” were found with these kilns.

Some of the more usual and more striking forms of the vessels from New Forest potteries are grouped together on Figs. 141 to 151. A selection of patterns from the wares are grouped on Figs. 152 to 157, some of which will be seen to bear a close resemblance to those of the Castor ware.

Of the potters’ kiln, &c., found near Colchester, where probably some ware in imitation of the fine red Samian was produced, a notice will be found in “Collectanea Antiqua.”[19] In the Yorkshire potteries—for there can be little doubt that at Potters Newton, at York, and at other places pot-works existed in these early times—the curious vessels ornamented with what are usually called “frill patterns” were made, as also other slip and scaled patterns, as on Figs. 158, 159, and 160.

At Headington, Oxfordshire, I had the good fortune myself to discover in 1849, along with the remains of a villa and other buildings, traces of a kiln and of many other interesting features,[47] of which I published an account in the Journal of the British Archæological Association.[20] The fragments of pottery found on this site were extremely varied, and attended with some very unusual facts. One of the most curious and interesting matters was the discovery of a clay mould bearing a beautifully formed female head (a bacchante), with a wreath of vine leaves encircling her brow, for the forming of heads on Romano-British pottery. Fig. 166 shows this mould, and Fig. 167 gives the impression taken from it.[21] The face[49] has a remarkably pleasing expression, and is beautifully formed. The mould is a rough lump of red clay, and has been broken on its sides.

The pottery, with but one or two exceptions, was in fragments; from these the engravings here given have been carefully restored. One very remarkable feature was the immense assemblage—a cartload at least—of fragments of mortaria. In form and material they differed considerably from those found in other localities. Some were of a fine buff-coloured clay, others of a lead colour, as produced by the smother kiln, and all well studded with broken quartz. In size they varied from seven and a half inches to nearly two feet in diameter. The larger one on Fig. 168 was one foot nine inches in diameter, while the smaller one is only seven and a half inches. The sections of the rims of the Headington mortaria are dissimilar to others, as I have carefully pointed out in the communication referred to. Fig. 171 exhibits a vessel of fine red ware, the rim of which is painted black, on which the white scroll-pattern is laid. The sections of rims which accompany it for comparison sake are, besides its own rim,—1, red with white pattern; 2, a fine red ware; 3, a fine ware, with a metallic surface; and 4 and 5, imported Samian. Fig. 175 is of chocolate colour, and is ornamented with an indented pattern of lines of squares, alternating with flat circles. Fig. 172 is of blue-gray colour, of fine and close and very hard texture; the sides are indented. Fig. 173 is of light buff colour. The curious assemblage of vessels grouped on Fig. 176 are formed of a fine black clay mixed with sand. They are beautifully formed, and many of them are ornamented with surface lines traced on the clay without incision or indentation. The two examples (Figs. 181 and 182) are of tolerably fine red ware; the taller one (which has had a handle) has been surface-coated with a red pigment. Fig. 178 is of coarse red ware, and, as will be seen, is much the same in form as our modern soup-plates. Fragments of vessels of the form of Fig. 180 were very numerous. They were of coarse buff-coloured ware. Other examples found during the excavations which I carried on are shown grouped on Fig. 183. Fig. 179, like the rest, restored from fragments, is a small and delicately formed cup, three and a quarter inches in diameter, of rough-cast ware[22]; of these, examples were found, some of red, and others of a chocolate colour.

Some good fragments of Castor ware were discovered, from[50] which the group (Figs. 97 to 99) has been restored. Fig. 174 is a small cup of buff-coloured ware. Some small fragments of a green glazed ware were also found.

Among the most curious of the discoveries were fragments of vessels of fine clay, of a buff colour, with the patterns painted in red on their surface. One of these bears the rude representation of a cock; others have waved and scrolled patterns; and others again, lines, dots, circles, &c. Many other varieties of wares were also found, as were some few fragments of Samian.

An interesting discovery of the remains of what appears to have been a potter’s workshop was made in Dorsetshire, in 1841, by Mr. Warne, of which he gives some very interesting particulars.[23] The foundations were rectangular and clearly defined—in length forty-four feet, in breadth twenty-five feet—constructed of flints, which are plentiful in the neighbourhood. “In clearing out there was found a great quantity of fragments of the ordinary smooth black and firm-grained ware: the bottoms of some vessels were perforated like colanders. In the course of the excavations, remains of instruments used by the potter were also found; the most interesting being a considerable portion of a wheel, formed of that peculiar bituminous shale well known as ‘Kimmeridge coal.’ It is part of a circle, originally a wheel or plate, fifteen inches in diameter and one inch and a quarter thick. It has undergone the process of a careful and well-finished turning in the lathe. It may at once be seen that it formed part of a potter’s wheel, the rotatory table on which the workmen moulded, or rather when brought to the desired form, the ductile clay received the finishing touches. There are to be seen two or three counter-sinkings, in which were fixed the arms of the metal axis on which it revolved. Portions of other wheels in limestone were found, and one of great thickness, in conglomerate, the use of which would seem to have been for pulverising the crude material. Numerous pieces were scattered about of small and very thin stone, of a rude but markedly angular form, similar to such as are still, or lately were, used in the manufacture of coarse earthenware. Amidst the débris was a knife fixed in a rude bone haft; with the remains[51] were a large brass coin of Marcus Aurelius, and three denarii of Severus Alexander, Gordianus III., and Philippus.”

At Wilderspool, the presumed site of Condate, an outskirt of Warrington, evidence exists which warrants the supposition that pottery of various kinds was there made by the Romans. A large quantity of fragments, including many interesting examples, have been collected by Dr. Kendrick and placed in the museum at Warrington; these include many well-known varieties of Roman wares, and some which are peculiar to the place; among these are excellent examples of “engine-turned” bowls, in which the engine-turning is surmounted by scoriated ornament; these are in red clay. Of Durobrivian ware were found portions of a bowl with overhanging rim, ornamented with the ivy-leaf pattern in slip; on one portion is a potter’s mark, PAT, which has been impressed on the side. Of imitation, or English, Samian, are several fragments, with relief ornaments, some of which are pretty close copies of the true Samian, while others are rather clumsy adaptations of the Samian borders, &c. Examples of Upchurch ware were also found. The wares which seem to be peculiar to Wilderspool, and which were, there is every reason to believe, made there, are the two varieties engraved on Figs. 184 and 185, and the “rough-cast” ware, of which a small vessel found by myself at Headington, and engraved on Fig. 179, will serve as an example. Fig. 184 is of a light red clay, which has been surface-coloured. It is ornamented with a mammal ornament—a series of raised circles, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, dying off in their lower half, and having a knob or nipple in the centre. This has evidently been the ornament of the upper part of a vessel, the lower being engine-turned in diagonal lines. Fig. 185 is of a dark-coloured clay, with a similar kind of ornament, but of much smaller size, the discs being only rather more than a quarter of an inch in diameter. The “rough-cast” ware, as this variety (Fig. 179) has been appropriately named by Dr. Kendrick, is a fine kind of red-ware, the vessels in which, after having been “thrown,” have, while in their soft, moist state, been powdered all over with small bits of dry clay, and then dipped in thin slip before[52] firing—the roughness having previously been carefully removed from the rims and other parts which were intended to be left plain. Dr. Kendrick claims this to be hitherto “unnoticed, and therefore undescribed;” but here he is in error, for in 1850[24] I described a similar ware—the only fragment then known—which I discovered at Headington (Fig. 179), that example being, perhaps, a little finer and of better quality than the present Wilderspool specimens.

Another variety of ornament, supposed by Dr. Kendrick to be unique, is on a hard bluish-grey ware; it is a series of patches of fine lines scratched into the surface, as though done by a fine comb or a hard brush.

Among the most special objects found at Wilderspool are two tetinæ, a tragic mask, and a triplet vase. Of the mask, engraved on Fig. 186, Dr. Kendrick says:—“Although it is sadly mutilated, an earthenware mask or visor for the human face is certainly the most rare and curious of the Roman antiquities discovered at Wilderspool. As such it has been described and figured in the seventeenth volume[53] of the Journal of the Archæological Association. In the British Museum is a single specimen of the comic mask, such as we often see represented on Greek and Roman sculptures or intaglio seals; there is also another mask, with the mouth closed, for the silent actor. The Wilderspool mask appears to be an equally solitary example of the tragic mask, although Pollux, an ancient writer, enumerates twenty-five typical or standing masks of tragedy—six for old men, seven for young men, nine for females, and three for slaves.”

The tetinæ, or feeding-bottles, are engraved on Figs. 187 and 188; they have tubular spouts at the side, and, when used, they were no doubt furnished with soft nipples or teats for the tender mouth of the infant. When found the mouth of each was covered by a fragment of pottery, and, from their upright position and contents, there can be no doubt that they contained the ashes of one or more children. It is also curious to remark that one handle was suited for the right hand of the nurse, and the other for the left, as if to compel a change of posture for the infant.

The triple, or triune vase, restored on Fig. 189, is an excellent specimen, the connecting bands being hollow tubes, so that when the liquor was placed in one, it rose to the same height in each. Many other objects of great interest were found at Wilderspool, and have been carefully described by Dr. Kendrick and illustrated by his daughter.

At Ashdon, in Essex, a potter’s kiln was discovered by the Hon. R. C. Neville in 1852. It was of square form, being, as nearly as could be measured, eighteen feet square, inclusive of the outer walls. The furnace appeared to have been at the south-west end, immediately communicating with the central and largest flue; in it was a considerable quantity of charcoal and black ashes. This flue was two feet six inches across at the entrance and two feet in width along the entire length, which divided the structure into two equal portions. From it eight lateral flues (each seven inches wide) diverged opposite each other on either side. It was closed by the north-eastern wall, which was carefully constructed of Roman tiles, which, as well as the flanged tiles in other parts, had evidently been used in some former building. Many fragments of tiles and pottery were strewed about, but no perfect vessel was found.

A kiln was discovered in 1868 at Winterton, near Brigg, on a site about half a mile from the Roman road, and not far from where a[55] tesselated pavement had been previously discovered. By the falling of a portion of the side of a pit where sand was being dug, there was exposed a rudely constructed kiln or oven, made by sinking a circular cavity about six feet deep and six feet in diameter at the top, becoming narrower towards the bottom, so as to be in fact an inverted cone. The lower half of it is in the sand, and the upper half in the surface soil, and in a thin bed of clay between this and the sand. A little more than a foot in depth of the bottom of the pit had been filled with soil from the surface, quite compact, as if it had been mixed with water and well rammed down. On the top of this rested the oven itself, formed by lining the pit with a mixture of coarse mud or clay with small stones and pebbles, to a thickness of about four inches at the bottom, increasing upward to ten inches at the brim,[56] which is about one foot and a half below the present surface of the field. From the centre of the floor thus made rises a pillar of one foot nine inches in height, and widening from one foot diameter at the bottom to one foot ten inches at the top, which pillar widens suddenly so as to form a sort of mushroom head, continuous in structure with the clay or mud floor and walls just described. Two shallow grooves run all round the inside of the oven, a little above the top of the pillar, and broken pieces of blue Roman pottery are laid across from the pillar to the side of the basin so as to cover in a sort of circular flue. Over these has been spread a thin coat of clay similar to the rest of the lining, so that the upper storey, so to speak, is a shallow pit, about three and a half feet diameter and one foot and a half deep. A large quantity of black ashes, and of fragments of Roman pottery, was found in and around the kiln. An account of this discovery, with an engraving of the kiln appeared in vol. ix. of “The Reliquary.” Another, in the same county, was discovered near Ancaster; and in Somersetshire a kiln has been uncovered.

Many potteries besides those whose productions have been here spoken of might be described; but as their productions were the usual classes of domestic or sepulchral vessels, or flue and other[57] tiles, it is not perhaps necessary to enumerate them. I will therefore proceed to speak of some of the vessels not already particularised in this chapter.

Amphoræ were undoubtedly made in the Roman pot-works of Britain; evidences of their manufacture having been observed in various localities. The most extensive of these indications was at Colchester, from which place the example (Fig. 194) is taken. These vessels are of large dimensions, strongly formed, and usually of a buff, or reddish-yellow colour. The forms of these vessels are of two[58] distinct kinds—the one being tall and slender, as in Fig. 194, and the other more globular, as in Figs. 196 and 197. They were mostly pointed at the bottom, for the purpose of fixing them, it is believed, in the earth, or in stands made for their reception.

Mortaria, of which three examples have been given (Figs. 168 to 170), formed another extensive class of domestic vessels. Their use appears to have been the pounding and beating up, for culinary purposes, of vegetables and other articles. Some of the examples which have been found bear unmistakable signs of long and hard use. Their inner surface was studded, while the clay was soft, either with small fragments of quartz or with scoriæ of iron, so as[59] to promote trituration. The example (Fig. 198) is of somewhat different character, having more upright, and somewhat higher, sides than usual. It has been much used.

Another of the more usual of the domestic vessels, of Romano-British manufacture, is the very convenient kind of basin (Fig. 199), which will be seen to be of the same general shape as Fig. 171. The form of this basin is infinitely better, more elegant, and more convenient than those in use among us at the present day. The central flanged rim is a very secure and handy arrangement for holding. This example, and the mortarium (Fig. 198) were found together—in fact, inverted one into the other—in the churchyard at Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. Many other varieties of domestic vessels were also extensively made, but to these it is not necessary farther to refer.

The sepulchral urns of Romano-British manufacture are of extremely varied form and ornamentation. Figs. 78, 135, 137, 140, 161 to 165, and 183, will serve as examples of some of the varieties. The most usual forms, however, are perhaps Figs. 200 to 205. They are of various kinds of clays, and were generally plain, or but slightly ornamented.

[60]

Other good examples of sepulchral urns of various kinds, and of different shapes, will be seen on the three groups of pottery, &c., found at Cirencester, shown on Figs. 203, 204, and 205.[25] On the same engravings will be seen many other characteristic examples of Roman Ceramic Art, as well as some metallic remains.

Building-tiles, flue-tiles, roof-tiles, and drain-tiles were a branch of manufacture which was carried on to a considerable extent in various parts of the country, and, no doubt, generally in the immediate neighbourhood of the buildings where they were used. The building-tiles which are to be seen in the remains of the period, as in the Jewry Wall at Leicester, engraved on Fig. 206, where occasionally they form “herring-bone” masonry, are usually from about seven to ten inches square, and about an inch and a half in thickness. They are frequently marked with letters, and with feet of animals which have passed over them (Figs. 207 and 209). The flue-tiles are of various dimensions. They are usually of an oblong square form, hollow throughout, with a lateral opening in one side for the heated air to pass through (see Fig. 214). Others have two channels through their entire length, and are without side openings. They are much ornamented with incised patterns, and occasionally are stamped with letters. Some, too, have figures of dogs, stags, &c. They were used for various purposes. Another example is shown lying down in the centre of the group of tiles on Fig. 210. In this group, the tall example, represented standing upright, will be sufficient to[61] show the form and excellence of construction of the drain-tiles—the small end of each being made to fit with an elbow joint into the thick end of the next. In the same group are some open-flanged drain-tiles. An inscribed flange-tile is shown on Fig. 217.

The roofing-tiles were much more calculated to resist the wind and rain than those of later invention. They had flanged sides, which fitted close to each other and were covered at the joint by a small semicircular tile, like a draining or ridge-tile, imbedded in mortar and resting on the two roofing-tiles, as a draining-tile rests on its sole. This arrangement is shown on Fig. 211, which represents some roofing-tiles found at Walesby. Of the ridge-tiles, of semicircular form, to cover the joints, two good examples (Figs. 212 and 215), from Headington, are here given.

It may be added that, on tiles of one kind or other, the name of the legions and cohorts quartered in particular localities where they were made, are frequently found impressed. The soldiers were brick-makers and masons, and made the tiles and built the houses, &c., at the places where they were stationed. Tile-stamps thus become important aids to history.

It is curious to add that some of the tiles which have been found tell a silent tale, which they were never intended to carry, of the dress or hand or foot of the maker, which have become accidentally impressed upon their surface while in a soft state, and are afterwards rendered imperishable by firing in the kiln. One example of this kind of accidental ornamentation (Fig. 207), which exhibits the impress of a man’s feet, or, rather, shoes thickly studded with nails,—like the “hob-nailed” boots of our own day,—will suffice as an illustration.

One extraordinary and highly interesting use of tiles among the Roman inhabitants of Britain was that of forming them into tombs.[26][62] A large tile was laid flat on the ground; two others of the same length were placed upright, one at each side, to form the sides; two shorter ones were placed upright as ends; and another tile formed the cover (Fig. 216). Thus a fictile cist, or chest, was formed, and in this was deposited the sepulchral urn containing the ashes of the departed, with its accompanying group of smaller vessels. Cists of this kind are found frequently in the Roman cemeteries at Colchester. “The practice of enclosing or covering the sepulchral deposits with tiles appears to have been so general, that the word tegula, a tile, was often used to signify a tomb. The reader will at once call to mind the lines of Ovid:—

It appears from these lines that it was the custom for the relatives to place garlands, fruit, and salt on the tile which covered the sepulchral deposit.[27]

At York, graves, or rather tombs, formed of a number of roof-tiles, have been found. Fig. 218 represents one of these curious tombs. It was formed of ten roof-tiles, four of which were placed on either side, and one at each end, and four ridge tiles arranged along the top. Each tile bore the impressed stamp of the VI. Legion (Leg. VI., Legio sexta victrix—the sixth legion victorious). In these tile-tombs urns had in one instance been placed; in another (the one engraved) were the remains of the funeral fire, with the ashes of the dead. Clay coffins have also occasionally been found. One of these, from Aldborough, is shown on Fig. 219.

Lamps were undoubtedly made in various parts of this kingdom, and were more or less ornamented; some bear excellently executed figures and other devices. Many appear to have been made at Colchester, and are spoken of by Mr. Roach Smith in his “Collectanea Antiqua.” The pot works at this place appear to have been on the Lexden Road, where a kiln and many other remains have been brought to light.

Penates and other figures, or statuettes, were also made in this[63] country; and these, again, it is pretty certain, were made in considerable numbers at Colchester, as were also lachrymatories, unguentaria, &c.

Coin moulds, for the manufacture of spurious Roman coins, were also made of clay, and the arrangement was very simple, but effective. The clay being properly tempered and prepared, was formed into small round tablets of uniform size and thickness. A coin was then pressed between two tablets while the clay was soft, so as to leave a perfect impression, and these impressions, which had thus become obverse and reverse moulds, were arranged together in little piles; the upper and lower being impressed on one side only. Down the sides of each of these little piles or heaps a nick or notch was then cut, so as to admit the molten metal. Two or three of these heaps were then, as shown in the engraving (Fig. 221), placed side by side with the notches joined together, and these were then surrounded by a clay cone with a hole at the top, into which the metal was poured, and ran down through the notches, and so into the moulds. Impressions were thus taken the exact counterpart of the original coin from which the moulds had been taken.

For examples of the ceramic art of the Anglo-Saxon period we are mainly indebted to the cemeteries and burial mounds of that people. The art during this period, so far as this country is concerned, was but little practised, except, as in the Celtic period, for the manufacture of sepulchral urns of one kind or other. Still, it is pretty certain that many of the vessels found in the barrows were made for the purposes of life, and used for those of death when urns were wanted. In the preceding era the population of this country—the Romano-Britons—were essentially a pot-producing people, and they established, as will have been seen, extensive manufactories in various parts of the kingdom, and made and supplied vessels for every conceivable use and purpose. When the Saxons took possession of the country, and gradually extended themselves over its length and breadth, they found the Roman towns, as well as the stations and detached dwellings—nay, they found every part of the island—well and, indeed, profusely stocked with crockery of every kind, from the finest Samian cup and bowl down to the coarsest mortarium and amphora, in such profusion, and in such variety, as well as of such elegance, use, and beauty, as they had not previously known. Fighting their way here, and settling there, they utilised the crockery which so abundantly lay ready to their hands, and, as there can be no doubt the Roman potters continued their works long after the advent of the Saxons, they used these Roman vessels for all purposes, and thus did not, except in the case of their burial urns and ordinary domestic vessels, resembling in a somewhat striking manner some modern utensils, leave the impress of what little taste or skill they had upon the productions of the fictile art. The cinerary urns are, therefore, almost, the only productions of the[66] Saxon potter which are known. These, like those of the Celtic period, were, there can be no doubt, usually made in pretty close proximity to their place of burial, and, consequently, were formed of the clays of the district. They assumed a peculiar character, and are entirely dissimilar to those of either of the preceding periods.

Of the forms of other vessels of the Anglo-Saxons—for there is no doubt that coarse domestic utensils were to some extent made—a tolerable idea may be gained from the illuminated MSS. of the time. Some few, but very few, examples have also been brought to light, which may with tolerable certainty be assigned to this period.

The engravings (Figs. 222 to 227) showing a few of the forms taken from the illuminated MSS. of this and the succeeding period, are interesting examples. Some of these will be seen to owe their origin—as, for instance, Fig. 226—to Roman design, while others are equally as clearly Franco-Gaulish in character. The Anglo-Saxons were not, like their Roman forerunners, an artistic race. They could not draw the form of the human figure correctly, nor, indeed, that of animals; but their delineations of jugs and pitchers are proved by existing examples to be pretty accurate. Their mind,[68] as a rule, was coarse and unpoetic as their own beer, while that of the Roman was bright and sparkling as his own champagne.

The scene depicted on Fig. 224 exhibits some well-formed vessels in the foreground, while the dinner scene on Fig. 222 shows other varieties.

For culinary purposes the Anglo-Saxons appear to have had a kind of aversion to clay, hence their bowls were principally of metal or wood—generally of ash, and their drinking-vessels were of horn or glass.[28] One form of vessel, made of coarse buff-coloured clay, is here shown (Fig. 229); and another of simple form is shown on Fig. 230.

The pottery of the Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds and cemeteries consists, unlike that of the preceding periods, almost exclusively of cinerary urns, and these have, as has been already stated on a previous page, been made near the place of sepulture; and, as a natural consequence, of the clays found in the neighbourhood. This is proved, incontestably, in the case of the urns found at King’s Newton, where the bed of clay still exists, and has very recently been used for common pottery purposes.[29]

The shape of the cinerary urns is somewhat peculiar, and partakes of the Frankish form, which may be called degraded Roman. Instead of being wide at the mouth, like the Celtic urns, they are more or less contracted, and have a kind of neck instead of the overhanging lip or rim which is so eminently characteristic of the[70] pottery of that period. Some, however, are tolerably wide at the mouth; but these are usually low and shallow. The cinerary urns were formed by hand, not on the wheel, although on some other vessels evidence of wheel-turning is apparent. This is another proof that these sepulchral urns were made on the spot where wanted. They are as a rule, perhaps, more firmly fired than those of the Celtic period. They are usually of a dark-coloured clay, sometimes nearly black, at other times of a dark brown, and occasionally of a slate, or greenish tint, produced by surface-colouring.

Their general form will be best understood by reference to the engravings, Figs. 232 to 244. One of these will be seen to have projecting knobs or bosses, which have been formed by simply pressing out the pliant clay from the inside with the hand. In other examples these raised bosses take the form of ribs gradually swelling out from the bottom, till, at the top, they expand into semi-eggshaped protuberances. The ornamentation on the urns from these cemeteries usually consists of encircling incised lines in bands or otherwise, and vertical or zig-zag lines arranged in a variety of ways, and, not unfrequently, the knobs or protuberances of which I have just spoken. Sometimes, also they present evident attempts at imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. The marked features of the pottery of this period is the frequency of small punctured or[71] impressed ornaments, which are introduced along with the lines or bands with very good effect. These ornaments were evidently produced by the end of a stick cut and notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In some districts, especially in the East Angles, these vessels are ornamented with simple patterns painted upon their surface in white; but, so far as my knowledge goes, no example of this kind of decoration has been found in the Mercian cemeteries.

Of the East-Anglian urns, Mr. Wright—to whom and to Mr. Roach Smith is mainly due the credit of having correctly appropriated them to the Anglo-Saxon period—thus speaks:—

The sepulchral vases found in the district of the Middle Angles vary but slightly in form from the East-Anglian burial urns. An example is given in Fig. 246, from Chestersovers, in Warwickshire, where it was found with an iron sword, a spear-head, and other articles of Anglo-Saxon character.

A few figures here given will illustrate this resemblance. Figs. 248 and 251 are two Allemannic urns from the cemetery of Selzen. It will be seen that they resemble in form the East Anglian urns, and the same ornamentation is also found among our general Anglo-Saxon pottery. These urns are described as being usually made of the clay of the neighbourhood, in most cases turned on a lathe, but many of them imperfectly baked. They are found in graves where the body had not undergone cremation, and were used for containing articles of a miscellaneous description. Fig. 252 is a slate-coloured urn, procured at Cologne, and is ornamented with circular stamps. Figs. 249 and 251 are Frankish urns, obtained by the Abbé Cochet from Londinières in Normandy, and show at a glance the[74] identity of the Frankish pottery with the Germanic as well as with the Anglo-Saxon. The second of these is surrounded with a row of the well-known bosses, which are equally characteristic of the three divisions of this Teutonic pottery—Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and Allemannic. Above these bosses is an ornament identical with that of the East Anglian urn with the sepulchral inscription. Figs. 253 to 256 are urns from the Swiss Lacustrine habitations, for comparison of form.

The series of engravings (Figs. 232 to 244) will show the general and more characteristic forms of purely Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns. Figs. 232 and 235 are of the low or flat variety, which is of not unfrequent occurrence. Figs. 234 and 236 are also of a not uncommon form, while 240 is more uncommon. Fig. 241 is of excellent form, and is very simple in ornamentation, having only encircling and diagonal lines, to decorate its surface. Figs. 243, 244, and 239 are of different shape, and so again are Figs. 237 and 240, which are almost unique in form and in ornamentation.

Most of these examples are from one locality, King’s Newton, in Derbyshire, within a few miles of the capital of the kingdom of Mercia. The others (Fig. 232) are from Kingston, in the same neighbourhood. Other characteristic examples of form and decoration are given on Figs. 233 and 234. These are from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and from the Norwich Museum, and exhibit excellent specimens of forms and decoration from those districts.

The ornamentation on Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns consists usually[75] of encircling lines in bands, or otherwise; in vertical or zig-zag lines, arranged in a variety of ways; of impressed or punctured ornaments; and of knobs or protuberances. Sometimes also, as in a Bedfordshire urn, they present evident attempts at imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. In some districts small ornaments are painted on the surface with a white pigment. The marked feature of the pottery of this period is the frequency of the small punctured or impressed ornaments to which I have alluded, which are introduced along with the lines or bands, with very good effect. These ornaments were evidently usually produced by the end of a stick, cut and notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In other instances these impressed ornaments have been produced by twisted slips of metal, &c.

In the woodcut (Figs. 260 and 261) I have endeavoured to show two of the notched-stick “punches,” such as I have reason to believe were used for pressing into the soft clay, and also the impressed patterns produced by them.

The quatrefoils (or as they may almost be called, crosses patée) on some of the urns I have engraved, particularly on Figs. 237, 238, and 239, are very unusual, as are also those in the lower bands of Figs. 237 and 240, and in the upper band of the latter example.

Other modes of ornamenting are shown on Fig. 234.

Of the pottery of the Norman period but little has been said by any writers, and that simply because but little was known. I had the good fortune, however, a few years’ back, to discover the remains of a kiln[30] of that period, in and around the remains of which were many vessels—“wasters” as they would be technically called—of various kinds. This discovery was all the more interesting and valuable, as being the only instance of the finding of a kiln either of the Anglo-Saxon or Norman periods, and it has enabled me to identify and appropriate to this age vessels from other localities. To these I shall presently refer.

The pottery of this period consisted chiefly of pitchers, dishes, bowls, or basins, and what we should now term porringers or pipkins; the bowls or basins and dishes being used for drinking[77] purposes as well as for placing cooked meats in; the pitchers for holding and carrying ale, mead, water, and other liquors to the table, and the porringers both for eating and for cooking with. The uses of these vessels, as well as their general forms, are gathered from the illuminated MSS. of the time which have come down to us. The annexed engraving (Fig. 264) from a twelfth-century MS., shows the pitchers, the water or wine vessels—both in their locker and being carried up to the feast by attendants, one of whom is drawing water from a draw-well in the yard. Fig. 263 shows, on a[78] table set out for dinner, the bowls or basins for the food and for drinking from, one of which holds a fish. The plate-like articles, it should be mentioned, are bread which was made in cakes, and variously ornamented with the knife. The other engravings (Figs. 262 and 266) are excellent representations of pitchers and wine vessels, drinking-cups and bowls, and other characteristic vessels. The next Fig. (265) gives the form of the drinking-cups excellently well, and enables one to determine that the small vessel engraved (Fig. 246) was one used for that purpose. It should be stated, however, that, as in the former case, the objects between the drinking-cups on the table are not plates, but cakes of bread.

The clay of which Norman pottery is formed is usually of a coarse kind, and the vessels bear evidence in many instances of the wheel having been used. In colour they are sometimes of a reddish brown, at others of a tolerably good red, while at others again they are nearly black; and many of the pitchers, &c., are either wholly or partially covered with a green or other glaze. Many are quite devoid of ornament, but others have the ends of the handles formed into foliage, &c., by the pressure of the finger. Some, however, are rather highly decorated. Figs. 267 to 270 show[79] four small-sized jugs, ranging from four and a half to seven inches in height, two of which are devoid of ornament, and the other two have their handles foliated. Figs. 273 and 275 show pitchers of a larger growth, of the same clumsy coarse kind of clay, and ornamented in the same primitive manner. They are about nine inches in height, and are green glazed.

Figs. 271 and 272 represent the two sides of a remarkably fine pitcher, which (as well as those engraved on Figs. 267 to 279) was discovered by myself in a kiln to which reference has been made. It is sixteen inches in height, and is, perhaps, the finest and most interesting fictile remain of the Norman period in existence. It bears, as will be seen, five horseshoes, and two buckles, all of which were badges of the Ferrars family (Norman Earls of Derby), who were[80] lords of the soil where, and at the time when, these vessels were made. The decorations are all laid on in “slip” of a finer kind of clay than that of which the body is composed, and the pitcher is glazed. Herring-bone pattern is incised in the body of the pitcher itself.

While speaking of this pitcher it may not be out of place to allude to a ludicrous mistake made in Miss Meteyard’s “Life of Wedgwood.” On page 38, vol. i. of that work, Miss Meteyard has copied my own woodcut which appeared some little time before, both in the “Reliquary” and in my own “Life of Wedgwood;” but her artist having made his tracing from my woodcut has reversed it in his copy, and thus made it worse than useless.

Fig. 274 represents a “porringer” or pipkin from the same place. It is of red clay; but others were found of a dark clay, and partly glazed. A kind of clumsy dish and a bottle-shaped vessel with a side handle are shown on the next engravings (Figs. 276 and 277).

Fragments of a number of large pitchers, highly decorated with flowers, bosses, &c., in slip, and incised patterns, were also found. Among the more interesting of these were some bearing round the neck rude attempts at faces and arms. Two of these are shown on Figs. 278 and 279.

[81]

[82]

The domestic vessels of a somewhat later date appear, in many instances, to retain the same general form, but in others present new shapes. Fortunately, we can again fall back upon the illuminated MSS. for forms of these vessels, and can compare them with actual examples.

Thus on Fig. 284 we have a dish of the fourteenth, and in Fig. 283 those of the fifteenth century; while in the others we have drinking cups, bowls, three-legged vessels with spouts, &c. Fig. 282 gives us a wash-hand basin and jug—an attendant holding the basin in one hand and jug in the other while the guest washes his hands, a female standing by with the towel. In Fig. 281 we have a remarkably fine assemblage of pitchers of the fourteenth century, some of which appear to be ornamented with cross bands; while in Fig. 280 (the dancing of Herodias before Herod) we have dishes, jugs, and bowls. Some of the vessels in these illuminations, it must be borne in mind,[83] may be of metal, but the form is still of the same value and importance. Some excellent figures of mediæval jugs are also given in the next engravings, one of which (Fig. 287) likewise shows a drinking-mug.

One of the earliest written notices of crockery we have is the oft-quoted entry in the account of payments by the executors of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I. “Item Juliana la potere pro ccc picheriis die anniversarii Reginæ viijs. vjd.”—these three hundred pitchers being probably earthenware vessels “provided for the feast given to the poor on the anniversary of the queen’s death.”[31] Another item in the same accounts is also curious: “Item, Johanni le squeler pro M^le et D discis, tot platelles, tot salseriis, et cccc chiphis, xlijs.”—the “squeler,” or “sargeant-squylloure,” being “pourveyour of the squylery,” or scullery, who had charge of the pots, and kept them clean and in order. In the household books of Edward IV. and Sir John Howard, in the fifteenth century, and the Earl of Northumberland, shortly afterwards, mention is made of “earth and asshen cuppes” and “erthyn potts”—the latter directing that leather pots[84] be bought in place of earthen ones, of course in consequence of the loss by breakage. The entry in the expenses of Sir John Howard, in 1466, referred to, shows somewhat curiously the cost of “potes” in those days:—“Watekin bocher of Stoke delyvered of my mony to on of the poteres of Horkesley iv^s. vi^d. to pay hemselfe and his felawes for xi dosen potes,” which would be about 4¾d. per dozen for them.

The vessels made in England in mediæval times principally consisted of pitchers and jugs, cups or bowls, bottles, and dishes; the term “pottes” being applied to the drinking cups then in general use. From them and their successors the “ale pots,” of which I shall yet speak, the still common term of a pot of ale has gradually come down to us. One shape of these drinking vessels is shown in the two smaller vessels, Figs. 293 and 294, the larger ones being excellent examples of the jugs in use along with them. These were dug up in Oxford, in 1838, and are preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. Other good examples of jugs, in the Jermyn Street Museum, are shown on Figs. 290 and 295. These are all plain, but are glazed.

The larger jugs, or pitchers, are frequently ornamented with heads, foliage, or other devices, in somewhat high relief. Many of these are very curious. They were made in different parts of the country, of the common clays of the locality, and decorated according to the taste and skill of the maker.

Jugs, or vessels for liquor, were occasionally, from a very early period, made in form of mounted knights. Indeed, from the occurrence of grotesque heads and portions of figures on the Norman vessels which I had the good fortune to exhume a few years[85] back,[32] it is probable these grotesque vessels may, in some instances, trace from that date. A very interesting example (Fig. 297) was found at Lewes in 1846. It is in the form of a mounted knight. The workmanship is very rude, but there are certain details, such as the long pointed toes and pryck spurs, from which its probable date is assigned to the time of Henry II. Its length is ten and half inches, and its full height, when perfect, would be thirteen or fourteen inches.[86] The material is coarse clay, the upper parts green glazed. There can be no doubt it was intended to contain liquor, and the handle, which passes from the back of the knight to the tail of the horse, was evidently intended for pouring out the contents; whilst a circular aperture at the lower end of the handle afforded the means of filling the vessel.[33] There is no evidence to show where this was made.

Another curious example (Fig. 298) preserved in the Salisbury Museum, was found at Mere, in Wiltshire, and is believed to belong to the latter half of the twelfth century. The costume and accoutrements of this figure (which is a knight on horseback, armed with shield, &c.) correspond almost precisely to that of the effigy of King Richard I. on his great seal.[34] The impressed circles are probably intended to represent chain mail.

Another vessel, of analogous character, preserved in the Scarborough Museum, is engraved on Fig. 299. It is in the form of an animal with a twisted horn, but its handle and other parts are imperfect. It is covered with a green glaze, and was, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt, made at Scarborough, where, as I shall show, the remains of a potter’s kiln was found in 1854, but has not, as yet, been named in any work on pottery.

A jug, which would almost appear to have been the origin of the bellarmine, to be hereafter described, was communicated by[87] Mr. Kirwan to the Journal of the British Archæological Association,[35] where it is engraved. It is covered with green glaze, and bears a well and powerfully moulded head, with the flowing hair and beard so characteristic of the time of Edward I., II., and III. To this period some clay moulds for the forming of faces upon mediæval pottery, found at Lincoln by Mr. Arthur Trollope, may be assigned; they are engraved by Marryatt,[36] and will be referred to later on in this volume. It will be seen, too, on comparison of this jug with the fragments of Norman pottery on another page, that it is the same kind of general idea, somewhat amplified, but carried out in the taste of the day.

The costrils, or pilgrims’ bottles as they are commonly called, i.e., bottles for liquor to be carried and hung on the person, were much made in the Middle Ages, and although usually plain, were, nevertheless, sometimes rather highly decorated. Fig. 300 is the shape mostly known as a pilgrim’s bottle, and will be seen to vary but little from the flattened globular amphora of Roman times (Fig. 303). Sometimes they had four loops instead of handles, so that the strap could pass through the four loops and make the carrying safer. To this class a remarkably fine example in the Roach Smith collection in the British Museum belongs. On one side are the royal arms of Henry VIII. within a rose and garter, and with supporters and crown, with the legend DNE SALVVM FAC REGEM REGINAM ET REGNVM (God keep safe the King, Queen, and kingdom): on the other side are four medallions: one contains the sacred monogram, I.H.S.; two others have radiating patterns, and the fourth a heart, with loveknot[88] of flowers and the word LEAL. Fig. 303 shows another example, somewhat of the form of Figs. 300 and 302; but in this case it is globular, or gourd-shaped, and not flattened on the sides, and the handles for the loops are simply flat pieces of clay pierced for suspension. This interesting example, which is of Tickenhall make, belongs to Sir J. H. Crewe, Bart., and is mottled with green all over its surface. Another excellent form of mediæval “pilgrim’s bottle” was found at Collingbourne Ducis by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A. It is of barrel shape, and has handles and mouth at the top, and, at the bottom, a stand. In front is a face surrounded by oak-leaves, within a circle of foliage, all in relief, and above this is an aperture. Other vessels partaking of the barrel-shape and mammiform character are also met with: some of their forms will be seen on Figs. 304 to 307. When carried, they would be slung by the handles in the same manner as others; but when not in use, instead of having a base, as in Fig. 303, one end is seen to be flattened for it to stand upon; the other end is in form of a woman’s breast—this, of course, in allusion to the use of the vessel, from the mouth of which the person who used it would drink or “suck” the liquor it contained. A much more perfectly formed mammiform bottle I give, from a beautiful drawing furnished me, with others, by my friend the late Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A., on Figs. 304 and 305. It is gourd-shaped, with one side flattened to prevent its rolling when set down, and the other side is a beautifully formed female breast. It is four and a half inches in height, and holds about half a pint.

The cruskin, or cruse, or cruske, was much in use, and made of somewhat varied form. It was the precursor of the tyg, and was nothing more than a drinking-cup. References are frequently found to this vessel, as a “crusekyn de terre,” and as having, in some instances, been mounted with silver. Usually, however, they were[89] plain cups of earthenware or of wood, generally ash, the latter partaking somewhat of the form of our present basin. I am inclined to think, too, that the pipkin, or porringer, was also called a cruske or cruskin. The term is still in use in Ireland, where a “cruisken of whiskey” is a common form of expression. Some of the forms of the “cruisken” as at present in use in Ireland—made of wood—are shown on Figs. 308 to 311.

The godet, or goddard, was another drinking-cup much in vogue, and was, evidently, a kind of large cup or bowl, in which spiced liquor was mixed and drunk by “gossips” and friends. Some of these bowls will be spoken of later on. Besides these, various other names for drinking-vessels were more or less in use.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the potter’s art was principally confined to the manufacture of common domestic vessels—large coarse dishes, cruiskens, tygs, pitchers, bowls, cups, candlesticks, pans, butter-pots, and other articles being among the number. Many articles, not made in England, were imported from Holland and other countries, and came into general use. They were, however, soon copied by our own workmen and made to a large extent. Among the principal of the imported vessels were bellarmines, or grey beards; and ale-pots. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, one William Simpson proposed to manufacture, “in some decayed town within this realm,” these ale-pots, which had till that time been solely imported from Cologne by Garnet Tynes, by which he promised that “manie a hundred poore men may be sett at worke.” As a preliminary to this, he petitioned the queen to grant him sole licence to bring them into the realm. The following is his petition:—[37]

[90]

Whether the petition was granted or not does not appear.

In 1570, according to Stow, Jasper Andries and Jacob Janson, potters, who had settled in Norwich in 1567 (which see), “removed to London. They set forth in a petition to Queen Elizabeth that they were the first that brought in and exercised the said science in this realm, and were at great charges before they could find materials in this realm. They besseeched her, in recompense of their great cost and charges, that she would grant them house room in or without the liberties of London, by the water side.” In 1626 a patent was granted to Thomas Rous, alias Rius, and Abraham Cullen, for the manufacture of “Stone Potts, Stone Juggs, and Stone Bottells.” This patent I here give entire:—

In 1635 a patent was granted to “David Ramsey, Esquier, one of the groomes of our pryvie chamber, Michael Arnold, and John Ayliffe, of the citty of Westminster, Brewers,” for a new method of heating boilers by means of sea coal, for brewers, soap-boilers, and others; which “invencion is alsoe very usefull for the Dryeinge of Bricke, all manner of Tyles, and all such sortes of Tyles as cannot be made in this kingdome but in the Heat of Sumer; and alsoe that they have found out the Arte and Skill of Makeinge and Dyeinge of all sortes of Panne Tyles, Stone Juggs, Bottles of all sizes, Earthen Wicker Bottles; Meltinge Pottes for Gouldsmythes, and other Earthen Comodityes within this our Realme, which nowe are made by Straungers in Forraigne Partes; and that in the makinge of the[92] same Earthen Comodityes as aforesaid, the saide David Ramsey, Michaell Arnold, and John Ayliffe shall have employment for many of our poore Subjects, whoe thereby shalbee sett on worke, and bee competently mainteyned, and will alsoe sell them cheaper than they are now sould.” This patent was for fourteen years, the parties being bound to pay one-fourth part of their profit yearly into the exchequer.

The stoneware was usually called “Cologne ware,” from Cologne, from whence it was first imported; and by this name that made in our own country continued to be in great measure known. It will be well here, therefore, to speak of the ale-pots and bellarmines of that kind of ware.

The Bellarmine, or Grey Beard, or Long Beard, as it was commonly called, was a stoneware pot of bottle form, mostly with a handle at the back and ornament on the front. The neck is narrow, and the lower part, or “belly,” as it is technically called, very wide and protuberant. They were in very general use at the “ale-houses” to serve ale in to customers, and were of different sizes—the gallonier containing a gallon; the pottle pot, two quarts; the pot, a quart; and the little pot, a pint. These jugs were derisively named after Cardinal Bellarmine, who died in 1621. The cardinal having, by his determined and bigoted opposition to the reformed religion, made himself obnoxious in the Low Countries, became naturally an[93] object of derision and contempt with the Protestants, who, among other modes of showing their detestation of the man, seized on the potter’s art to exhibit his short stature, his hard features, and his rotund figure, to become the jest of the ale-house and the byword of the people. Allusions to the bellarmines are very common in the productions of the English writers of the period.

Ben Jonson, in his Gipsies Metamorphosed, gives the following amusing version of the origin of these vessels:—

In another place he says:—

In another play, the Ordinary, is the following:—

In the curious play of Epsom Wells, one of the characters, while busy with ale, says, “Uds bud, my head begins to turn round; but let’s into the house. ’Tis dark. We’ll have one Bellarmine there, and then Bonus nocius.”

These are but a few of the allusions that might be brought forward from the old writers, but they are sufficient to show its common use. The ale pots thus being formed with the corpulent proportions and the “hard-mouthed visage” of the cardinal, became a popular and biting burlesque upon him. From them, too, from the face upon the ale mug or ale pot, the vulgar name of “mug” for the human face is probably derived. The engravings, Figs. 312 to 314, show three bellarmines; the first two are “foreign” make, but the latter is English; and a strong general resemblance will be seen to the pitchers before engraved. Another English bellarmine is engraved under the head of “Fulham.”

[94]

The ordinary “ale-pots,” or “little pots,”—the pint jugs,—were, like the bellarmines, at first imported into this country, but they were afterwards made to a considerable extent in various parts of the kingdom. They were made of a light-coloured clay, and took the name of “stoneware,” from their hardness and colour. They were turned on the wheel, the necks being usually covered, with deeply encircling lines; and the ornaments consisted of lines scratched, or incised, into the soft clay with a sharp point, in form of foliage, flowers, scrolls, circles, &c., and then washed in with blue colour. In some instances a pattern—usually a flower or initials—was impressed, from a mould, on the front, as in the manner of the bellarmines. They are generally very thick, and must have been extremely durable. One example is engraved (Fig. 315).

Salt-glazing appears to have been introduced about 1680, and it gradually superseded the lead-glazing which till that time was in regular use. The account given of this discovery is, that “at Mr. Joseph Yates’, Stanley, near Bagnall, five miles east of Burslem, in Staffordshire, the servant was preparing, in an earthen vessel, a salt-ley for curing pork, and during her temporary absence the liquid boiled over, and the sides of the pot were quickly red hot from intense heat; yet, when cold, were covered with an excellent glaze. The fact was detailed to Mr. Palmer, potter, of Bagnall, who availed himself of the occurrence, and told other potters. At the small manufactories in Holden Lane (Adams’s), Green Head, and Brownhills (Wedgwood’s), salt-glazed ware was soon afterwards made.” “The ovens employed for the purpose being used only once weekly, and the ware being cheap, were large in diameter, and very high, to contain a sufficient quantity to be baked each time, to cover all contingent expenses. They were constructed with a scaffold round them, on which the firemen could stand, while casting in the salt through holes made in the upper part of the cylinder, above the bags or inner vertical flues; and the saggers were made of completely refractory materials, with holes in their sides, for the vapourised salt to circulate freely among all the vessels in the oven[95] to affect their surfaces.” The ware thus glazed, and made from the common clay, with a mixture of fine sand from Mole Cop, was called “Crouch ware,” and in this all the ordinary articles of domestic use, including jugs, cups, dishes, &c., were made. At this time, it is stated, there were only twenty-two ovens in Burslem and its neighbourhood. “The employment of salt in glazing Crouch ware was a long time practised before the introduction of white clay and flint. The vast volumes of smoke and vapours from the ovens entering the atmosphere, produced that dense white cloud which, from about eight o’clock till twelve on the Saturday morning (the time of ‘firing up,’ as it is called), so completely enveloped the whole interior of the town, as to cause persons often to run against each other, travellers to mistake the road; and strangers have mentioned it as extremely disagreeable, and not unlike the smoke of Etna or Vesuvius.”

In 1685 a white stoneware was made at Shelton by Thomas Miles, and at the same time and place a brown stoneware was also made. These would be the same as the ale-pots and bellarmines were made of.

In 1686, Dr. Plot published his “Staffordshire,” and thus spoke of the butter trade, and butter-pots then made:—[38]

In reference to this, the Historian of Uttoxeter says:—

The following extracts from the churchwardens’ accounts of Uttoxeter illustrate this subject:—

The butter pots were tall cylindrical vessels, of coarse clay, and very imperfectly baked. They are now of great rarity, but specimens may be seen in the Hanley Museum and in the Museum of Practical Geology. Their form will be seen in Fig. 316. It is worthy of remark that even yet, as it was in Shaw’s days, Irish or Dutch butter, which is generally imported in casks, and is in most places known as “tub butter,” is, in the potteries, usually called “pot butter.”

Of the state of the Staffordshire potteries at this period, the latter half of the seventeenth century, Dr. Plot gives a most interesting and valuable account, in which he shows not only what clays were then used, but also speaks of the glazes, and describes the modes of manufacture of some of the vessels. The clays, it appears, were mostly procured from the coal measures, and fine sand to temper and mix with them was procured from Baddeley Edge, Mole Cop, and other places. The following is Dr. Plot’s account:—

[97]

A round dish of the “combed ware,” or marbled or mottled ware, described by Plot, is shown on Fig. 317. Some of the examples I have seen are exceedingly delicate and minute in their patterns; others, as the engraving, have been “combed” with a coarse comb or wire brush. The lead for glazing, named by Plot, was procured from the Derbyshire lead mines—the ore being powdered, or “punned,” and dusted on to the soft clay vessel before firing.

Previous to this, in 1671, John Dwight took out a patent in the petition for which he stated that “he had discovered the Mistery of Transparent Earthen Ware, comonly knowne by the Names of Porcelaine or China and Persian Ware, as alsoe the Misterie of the Stone Ware vulgarly called Cologne Ware; and that he designed to introduce a Manufacture of the said Wares into our Kingdome of Englande, where they have not hitherto been wrought or made.” This was the origin of the famous Fulham works, a full account of which will be given in another part of this volume.

In 1676 John Ariens Van Hamme, “in pursuance of the incouragement he hath received from our Ambassadour at the Hague, is come over to settle in this our kingdome with his family, to exercise his ‘Art of makeing Tiles and Porcelaine and other Earthen Wares, after the way practised in Holland,’ which hath not beene practised in this our kingdome,” took out a patent for fourteen years for the sole[99] practice of his art. The “tiles” named in his patent would, of course, be the “Dutch Tiles” as they were always called, and which were used for the lining of rooms, the decoration of fire-places, and for various other purposes. They were about four inches square, made of a common kind of clay, and faced, as all delf ware was, with a fine white slip. On this was painted a pattern—a group of figures, the illustration of some sacred or profane story, foliage, birds, or other devices, in blue colour, and then glazed and fired. On one of these tiles is represented a lady letting her lover down from her chamber into the street below, by a rope which she holds in her hand, and others have various devices. The manufacture of these tiles was carried on largely in England, and further notices will be given under the head of Liverpool, &c.

In 1684 John Dwight, having represented “that by his owne industry and at his owne proper costes and charges hee hath invented and sett vp at Fulham, in our County of Middlx, “Severall New Manufactures of Earthenwares, called by the names of White Gorges, Marbled Porcellane Vessels, Statues, and Figures, and Fine Stone Gorges and Vessells never before made in England or elsewhere; and alsoe discovered the Mistery of Transparent Porcellane, and Opacous, Redd, and Dark coloured Porcellane or China and Persian Wares, and the Mistery of the Cologne or Stone Wares, and is endeavouring to settle manufactures of all the said wares within this our kingdome of England,” had another patent for fourteen years granted to him. To Dwight, therefore, it will be seen by these patents, the credit of being the first inventor and maker of porcelain in England belongs. His name is thus one entitled to lasting honour as the pioneer of one of the best, most beautiful, most successful, and most flourishing arts ever practised in our kingdom.

In 1688 the brothers Eler or Elers, traditionally believed to have been potters from Holland, are said to have come over with William, Prince of Orange (William III.), to England at the time of the “Glorious Revolution,” and, two years later, to have settled at Bradwell and Dimsdale, not far from Burslem, in Staffordshire, where they erected kilns and commenced the making of a fine red ware (probably the kind spoken of by Dwight), in imitation of foreign red porcelain, from a vein of clay which, by some means, they had discovered existed at this spot. Here they produced remarkably fine and good red ware, of compact and hard texture, good colour,[100] and of very characteristic and excellent designs. They were men of much skill and taste, and their productions so closely resemble those of Japan as to be occasionally mistaken for them. An example, from the Museum of Practical Geology, is here shown. The Elers, besides the red ware, also produced an exceedingly good Egyptian black, by a mixture of manganese with the clay; and this was the precursor and origin of the fine black bodies of Josiah Wedgwood and others. “Their extreme precaution,” says Shaw, “to keep secret their processes, and jealousy lest they might be accidentally witnessed by any purchaser of their wares—making them at Bradwell, and conveying them over the fields to Dimsdale, there to be sold, being only two fields distant from the turnpike road, and having some means of communication (believed to be earthenware pipes, like those for water) laid in the ground between the two contiguous farmhouses, to intimate the approach of persons supposed to be intruders—caused them to experience considerable and constant annoyance. In vain did they adopt measures for self-protection in regard to their manipulations, by employing an idiot to turn the thrower’s wheel, and the most ignorant and stupid workmen to perform the laborious operations, and by locking up these persons while at work, and strictly examining each prior to quitting the manufactory at night—all their most important processes were however developed, and publicly stated for general benefit. Mortified at the failure of all their precaution, disgusted at the prying inquisitiveness of their Burslem neighbours, and fully aware that they were too far distant from the principal market for their productions—even had not other kinds of porcelain been announced, which probably would diminish their sales—about 1710 they discontinued[101] their Staffordshire manufactory, and removed to Lambeth or Chelsea (where is at this day a branch of the family), and connected the interests of their new manufactory with those of a glass manufacture, established in 1676 by Venetians, under the auspices of the Duke of Buckingham. Others, however, have stated that their removal was consequent on misunderstanding and persecution because their oven cast forth such tremendous volumes of smoke and flame, during the time of glazing, as were terrific to the inhabitants of Burslem, and caused all its (astonishing number of eight) master potters to hurry in dismay to Bradwell.”

The two potters who had wormed out the secret of the Elers were named Astbury and Twyford, and they are said each to have commenced business on his own account at Shelton, and to have made “Red,” “Crouch,” and “White stone” wares from native clays, using salt glaze for some of the vessels, and lead ore for others. It is interesting to add that the oven erected and used by the Elers was in existence as late as the beginning of the present century, and that the place, in an old account-book in my possession, is called “the Eller field.”

About the period when Dwight was taking out his patent, Thomas[102] Toft and Ralph Toft were making, in Staffordshire, some large domestic dishes, which, from some of them bearing their names, put on in large letters, are universally known to collectors as “Toft Dishes.” Under this name, however, it is well to state many dishes and other vessels pass which never were, or could have been, made by them, and I warn collectors against too easily pinning their faith to a belief that their examples are genuine “Tofts” unless they bear the name. The style was common to all makers of that date. Besides dishes, tygs of various forms, with one, two, three, or four handles; pitchers of various sizes, candlesticks, posset-pots, gossips’ bowls, pans or pancheons, utensils for the chamber, and many other articles, were made of precisely the same coarse materials, and of exactly the same kind of decoration as the dishes.

The material of these pots is a coarse reddish or buff-coloured clay, and the ornaments are laid on in different coloured clays, and the whole is then glazed thickly over. One of these large dishes, now in the Museum of Practical Geology, is shown on Fig. 321. The body is of buff-coloured clay, with the ornaments laid on in relief in light and dark brown. The border is trellised, and in the centre is a lion rampant, crowned. On the rim beneath the lion is the name of the maker, THOMAS TOFT. In the same museum is a fragment of another similar dish, with a lion and unicorn. A very fine dish of a similar kind, and by the same maker, in the Bateman[103] Museum is engraved on Fig. 320. It is twenty-two inches in diameter, and bears a half-length crowned portrait of King Charles, with sceptre in each hand, and the initials C.R. Below the figure, on the rim, which, as usual, is trellised in red and black, is the name THOMAS TOFT. In the same museum is another remarkably fine dish, bearing two full-length figures in the costume of the Stuarts, the gentleman holding in his hand his hat and feather, and having “petticoat breeches,” tied stockings, and high-heeled boots with ties, and the lady holding a bunch of flowers. Between the figures are the initials W. T., and on the rim at the bottom, in precisely the same manner as the Toft dishes, is the name WILLIAM: TALOR. Another Toft dish (Fig. 322) now in the possession of Mr. Bagshawe, is nineteen inches in diameter, and bears a female figure, and two heads in ovals, with foliage, &c., and the name RALPHOFT, or Ralph Toft, the H and T being apparently conjoined. The ground is buff, and the ornaments are laid on in dark and light brown clay. Another with the name RALPH TOFT, 1677, was in the Reynolds’ collection.[104] Another maker of this period, whose name occurs in the same manner as those just described, was WILLIAM SANS. Of the makers of these dishes, it is interesting to observe that Toft is an old name connected with the pottery district, and that members of the family are still potters in the neighbourhood. It is also an old Derbyshire name, being connected with Youlgreave and other places in that neighbouring county.

The “Tygs” appear to have been made in considerable numbers, and, indeed, to have constituted one of the staple manufactures of the potters of that day. They were the ordinary drinking-cups of the period, and were made with one, two, three, four, or more handles. The two-handled ones are said to have been “parting cups,” and those with three or four handles “loving cups,” being so arranged[105] that three or four persons drinking out of one, and each using a different handle, brought their lips to different parts of the rim. Examples of some of the forms of these tygs are shown on Figs. 323 to 328. Two of these, with three handles each (Figs. 326 and 328), were found in a long-disused lead mine at Great Hucklow; another (Fig. 327) has three handles and a spout, and is ornamented with bosses of a lighter colour, bearing a swan, a flower, and a spread eagle. The fourth (Figs. 323 and 324) are two-handled cups, of the same general form as those with one handle. These two latter specimens are in the Museum of Practical Geology. Other examples of various forms are shown on the remaining engravings.

A curious candlestick, shown on Fig. 329, in the Museum of Practical Geology, is of much the same kind of ware as the tygs, and has its ornaments in white clay slip; it bears the date 1649, and[106] the initials E. M. Another, in my own collection (Fig. 330), is made of precisely the same coarse kind of ware as the tygs; dark reddish brown, with ornaments in white slip—the slip at the base having been laid on in a broad band, and then scratched through to the dark clay. The mug, Fig. 331, is exactly the same kind of ware.

Another curious article of this same kind of ware, in the Bateman collection, is engraved on Fig. 332. It is a small earthenware cradle of excellent form, and elaborately ornamented; the ground is a rich reddish brown, the ornaments of buff and black. It bears the date on its top of 1693, and is 7¾ inches long, and 4¾ inches in height. To this period belongs the interesting puzzle-jug in the Museum of Practical Geology, shown on Fig. 333. It is of brown ware, and bears the name, incised in writing letters, of “John Wedgwood, 1691,” and is the first and earliest example of the name of Wedgwood occurring on pottery. It will again be referred to later on.

It is very clear that brown ware of the same general character as the tygs and the Toft dishes, was made in very many parts of the country besides Staffordshire, and that much now by collectors appropriated to that county has no connection with it.

A peculiar use for ceramics should here be noticed; it has not before been spoken of in any work upon pottery. I allude to hand-grenades, two of which, preserved in the Leicester Museum, are here engraved (Figs. 334 and 335). These were found in the Old Magazine, or Newarke, Gateway at Leicester. They are formed of red clay, and fired in the kiln in the usual manner, and they have fuse-plugs of wood fitted into the opening at the top.

At the commencement of the eighteenth century, the ceramic art in this country was beginning to expand in a remarkable degree, and many important strides for its improvement were taken. The brown-ware dishes, tygs, and other vessels for domestic use, were still made as before, and stoneware bottles, ale pots, and other articles continued to be produced; but, beyond these, some much finer kinds of earthenware were introduced, which gradually took their place. Among these were Delft ware and Crouch ware, to which I have referred, and the white ware, which has frequently, but erroneously, been called “Elizabethan ware,” which was probably introduced about this time. A good specimen of the brown ware of this period, which will be seen to be identical in character with the dishes and tygs and cradle before spoken of, is the posset pot shown on Fig. 336.[108] It bears the loyal motto, “GOD : SAVE : THE : QVEEN : 1711,” and is ornamented in the usual way with slip. It is of much the same character as a wassail or gossips’ bowl, bearing the name “RICHARD MEIR,” in the Liverpool Museum. It is shown on Fig. 337. The form of Fig. 336 is somewhat different from the usual later shape of posset pots, as will be shown on engravings which will follow. As posset and posset pots are local matters, a few words concerning them will here be interesting. Posset pots have been made and regularly used in Derbyshire and the neighbouring counties from an early period until the present time. “Posset” is an excellent mixture of hot ale, milk, sugar, spices, and sippets, or, perhaps, more correctly speaking, dice, of bread or oat-cake. In these counties this beverage was formerly almost, if not quite, universal for supper on Christmas-eve; and the “posset pot” was thus used but once a year, and often became an heirloom in the family. A small silver coin and the wedding-ring of the mistress of the family were generally dropped into the posset when the guests were assembled, and those who partook of it took each a spoonful in turn as the “pot” was handed round. Whichever of the party fished up the coin was considered certain of good luck in the coming year, while an early and happy marriage was believed to be the enviable fate of the lucky individual who fished up the ring. Other posset pots will be found engraved in other parts of this volume, under the heads of Nottingham and Brampton.

It is clear that about this time the art of pot-making began to make rapid strides; for in the space of twenty-seven years—from 1722 to 1749—no less than nine separate patents were taken out, and were followed in rapid succession by others. In 1722, Richard Holt and Samuel London, gentlemen, took out a patent for “a certain new composicon or mixture (without any sort of clay) for making of white ware, which is formed and moulded in a method hitherto not known or practised, and far surpasses the finest of delf ware, or any other sort made in any part of Europe, and also by their new method of impression make the fabrick of earthenware of a more exquisite shape than the present method of turning could ever perform or arrive to, by which meanes our subjects will be able to excell all Europe, and not only employ a great many of our own poor, to the great benefit of trade and the manufactures of our kingdom, but also prevent the clandestine running of delf ware, &c., from foreign parts into Great Brittain;” granted “for the term of[109] fourteen years.” It does not say of what materials the composition is made, except that it is without any sort of clay, nor does it describe any method of impression.

In the same year, Thomas Billin, having “by many long, laborious, and chargeable experiments found out and invented a method for making the most refined earthenware, with help of clay and other materials found within this kingdom, which ever yet appeared in this part of Europe, of a nature and composicon, not only transparent, but so perfect in its kind, and of principles so firmly vnited, as (contrary to the nature of all other earthenwares) to resist almost any degree of heat, by which qualities it is more valuable, and of greater vse and ornament than all other kinds ever yet invented or practised in this kingdom, and capable of being wrought into vessels and ornaments for any vse; and for the working of the same invention he hath invented particular and proper engines and tools.” No description is given of the mode of manufacture, or of the engines or tools mentioned in the title of the invention.

In 1724 Robert Redrich and Thomas Jones had a patent granted them for “a new art or method, as well for staining, veining, spotting, clouding, damasking, or otherwise imitating the various kinds of marble, porphyry, and other rich stones, and tortoiseshell, on wood, stone, and earthenware, and all and every such goods, wares, utensils, and things as are made, cut, or fashioned thereout, as for the making, marbling, veining, spotting, staining, clouding, and damasking any linen, silks, canvas, paper, and leather.”

In 1726, and again in 1732, patents were taken out for methods of grinding flints, &c., which were of much importance. The first of these, by Thomas Benson, is described as “an engine or new method for the more expeditious working the said flint stone, whereby all the said hazards and inconveniences attending the same will effectually be prevented.” It is stated that in the making of “white pots,” flint stone is “the chief ingredient,” and that the method hitherto used in preparing it “has been by pounding or breaking it dry, and afterwards sifting it through fine lawns, which has proved very destructive to mankind;” and this invention is to obviate it, and is as follows:—The flint stones are first wetted, then crushed as fine as sand by two large wheels, of the bigness and shape of mill-stones, of iron, and made to turn upon the edges by the power of a water-wheel. This material is afterwards conveyed into large circular iron pans, “in which there are large iron balls, which, by the[110] power of the water-wheel above named, are swiftly driven round: in a short time the operation is concluded, and by turning a tap the material empties itself into casks.”

The next one, by the same Thomas Benson, taken out in 1732, was described as—

In 1729 Samuel Bell took out a patent for fourteen years “for a new method not hitherto practiced within Great Brittain for making of a red marble stone ware with minerall earth, found within this kingdom, which being firmly vnited by fire will make it capable of receiving a gloss so beautiful as to imitate, if not to compare with rubie; that the stone ware may be formed into vessells for any necessary vse, or into ornaments for houses or gardens, such as jarrs, flower potts, &c., it being the most perfect of its kind, both in colour, nature, and form, that hath ever appeared in this part of Europe;” but no specification, to show what the mineral earth was, is given.

In 1733 (April 24th) Ralph Shawe, potter, of Burslem, who, like many other potters of the district, had long adopted the improvements of Mr. Astbury and others, took out a patent for employing “various sorts of mineral, earth, clay, and other earthy substances, which, being mixt and incorporated together, make up a fine body, of which a curious ware may be made, whose outside will be of a true chocolate colour, striped with white, and the inside white, much resembling the brown China ware, and glazed with salt.” The secret was merely washing the inside, and forming broad lines on the outside of the articles with a very thick slip of flint and pipeclay.[111] “To keep his process more secluded and secret, he was accustomed to evaporate his mixed clays on a long trough, in a place locked up under cover, beneath which were flues, for the heat from fire applied on the outside. This also kept the clay free from any kind of dirt; and the idea is supposed to have been gained from the tile-makers’ method of drying their tiles in stoves. A pair of flower-pots, excellent specimens of this person’s manufacture, which had been received as a present from the maker by his wife’s grandfather, were in the author’s possession till very recently. Mr. Shawe became so litigious and overbearing, that many of the manufacturers were extremely uncomfortable, and prevented improving their productions. Not content with the success he experienced, and the prospect of speedily acquiring affluence, his excessive vanity and insatiable avarice incited to proceedings that terminated in his ruin. Unwilling to admit the customary practices of the business, and to brook any appearance of competition, he was constantly objecting to every trifling improvement as an infringement of his patent, and threatening his neighbours with suits in equity to protect his sole rights; till at length self-defence urged them to bear the expenses of a suit he had commenced against J. Mitchell, to try the validity of the patent, at Stafford, in 1736; and very aged persons, whose parents were present, give the general facts of the trial:—All the manufacturers being interested in the decision, those most respectable were in the court. Witnesses proved Astbury’s invention and prior usage of the practice, and a special jury of great intelligence and wealth gave a verdict against Mr. Shawe. The learned judge, after nullifying the patent, thus addressed the audience—“Go home, potters, and make whatever kinds of pots you please.” The hall re-echoed with acclamations, and the strongest ebullitions of satisfaction from the potters, to the indescribable mortification of Mr. Shawe and his family, who afterwards went to France, where he carried forward his manufactory, whence some of his family returned to Burslem about 1750.” This event is thus characteristically spoken of in native tongue, in the “Burslem Dialogue,” by Mr. Ward:—

The kind of ware just described was sometimes known as “bitstone[112] ware,” from “bits” of stone being used to separate the pieces in the oven. This was, of course, prior to the use of “stilts,” “triangles,” or “cockspurs.”

In 1744, Edward Heylyn, in the parish of Bow, in the county of Middlesex, merchant, and Thomas Frye, of the parish of West Ham, in the county of Essex, painter, took out a patent, and early in the following year enrolled their specification, for the making of china and porcelain ware. This specification, which is deeply interesting, is as follows:—

In 1748 Thomas Frye took out another patent, the specification for which, enrolled March 17, 1749, is as follows:—

In these specifications we have important materials touching the Bow china works, under which head they will again be referred to.[114] About this time, the Chelsea, Worcester, and Derby, and, a little later, the Plymouth, porcelain works were established. The year in which this specification was enrolled, 1749, is memorable as the year when Josiah Wedgwood completed his term of apprenticeship, and when, consequently, he entered upon that course of work and life which have ever since had so brilliant and so marked an effect upon the potter’s art in this country. At this time, too, there were in Staffordshire a number of very skilful potters, who were, even before Wedgwood’s time, making rapid strides in the art. To some of these I shall refer later on in this work.

The next patent taken out was in 1762, by “William White, of Fulham, in the county of Middlesex, potter,” for making white crucibles or melting-pots of Stourbridge clay and Dorsetshire clay, calcined, mixed with Woolwich sand, and water, and trodden together, and burned. Two years later, James Williamson and Joseph Spackman patented “a new method of turning ovals in pewter, English china, and all other earthenwares,” on a lathe with movable chucks and sliding ring, of their inventing. In 1766, “the Count de Lauraguais, of London,” having, “by his petition, humbly represented unto us, that by labour, study, travelling, and expence in trying experiments, he hath found out and invented ‘a new method of making porcelain ware in all its different branches, viz.—to make the coarser species of china, the more beautiful of the Indies, and the finest of Japan, in a manner different from any that is made in our dominions, and he, having the materials tryed in Great Britain, has brought the same to so great perfection that the porcelain made therewith after his new method far excells any that has hitherto been made in Great Britain, the same not being fusible by fire, as all other china made there is,’” took out a patent for fourteen years, but no specification seems to have been enrolled.

During all this time the pottery district of Staffordshire was rapidly increasing, and important strides were being made by its manufacturers in the improvement of their art. In various parts of the country, too, old pot works continued their business in an improved state, and new ones sprang up in every direction. The history of the art, therefore, becomes that of the various works which I shall have to pass under review. The patents taken out from this period to the close of the century are some guide to this state of progress, but not much; for it is an undoubted fact, that many of the most important improvements and most reliable inventions were[115] never patented at all, while others, which were the gradual result of daily practice, were not sufficiently “inventions” to entitle them to patent right.

In 1768 William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, took out a patent for his newly invented porcelain, which was renewed in 1775 to Richard Champion; to these reference will be made under the heads of “Plymouth” and “Bristol.”

In 1769 Josiah Wedgwood took out his only patent; it was for decorative, not manufacturing, processes, and will be spoken of more fully in the notice of Etruria.

In 1782 James Crease patented some inventions in the making of sanitary vessels; and in the two following years “Joseph Cartledge, of Blackley, in the county of York, Doctor of Physic,” enrolled his specification for “a method of glazing earthenware.” This interesting document is as follows:—

The next patent, in 1785, was by Thomas De-la-Mayne, for “making buttons of burnt earth or porcelain;” and the next, in 1786, by John Skidmore, for ornamenting various articles and “all sorts of china and earthenware with foil stones, Bristol stones, paste, and all sorts of pinched glass, lapped glass, and every other stone, glass, and composition used in or applicable to the jewellery trade,” in ways therein described. In 1789 an improvement in the form and construction of “soup ladles, tureens, gravy spoons, ladles, and skimmers,” was patented by John Baynes; and in 1790, Johanna Hempel patented newly invented filters. In 1796, James Keeling patented improvements in decorative and glazing processes; and in the same year, in conjunction with Valentine Close, an improved mode of constructing “ovens, kilns, and firing-places, so as to make and cause a very great saving of coals and fuel in and about the firing, hardening, and baking all manner of porcelain, china ware, and all manner of earthenwares, in every state wherein firing is needful and necessary.”

In the same year, 1796, Ralph Wedgwood took out three separate patents. The first of these was for a “new discovered and invented method of making earthenware, whereby the article of earthenware may be made at a less cost than hitherto, to the great advantage of the manufacturers thereof, and of the public.” This consists “in casing over inferior compositions with compositions commonly used for making cream-coloured ware, white ware, or china.” “Thick bats or laminæ” of the inferior are covered on each side with thin bats of the superior clay, and if the edges of the ware are required to be cased, they are surrounded “with a square piece commonly called a wad.” Afterwards the “bats” are beat, pressed, or rolled out to the required dimensions, “as are proper for the wares to be[117] made from the same.” For moulding the wares single moulds may be used, but double are preferred, of wood, or “wood cased with plaster, of metal,” or any material capable of standing much pressure. The press is such as is used for stamping buttons. The glazing is applied dry to the bats; if the edges of the ware, after moulding, are not properly covered with dry glaze, supply these parts “with wet glaze, by means of a pencil;” afterwards stove and burn the ware. The others were respectively for a new method of making glass from old earthenware, china, &c.; and for “a new-invented stove,” “calculated principally for the use of manufacturers of earthenware and china.” On the same day on which this patent was dated, one was also granted to John Pepper, for a new construction of kilns or ovens for the same purpose. In 1799 Messrs. William and John Turner patented “a new method or methods of manufacturing porcelain or earthenware, by the introduction of a material not heretofore used in the manufacturing of those articles;” the material being “Tabberner’s Mine rock,” “Little Mine rock,” and “New rock,” mixed with the growan, or Cornish stone, and flint.

This is the last patent connected with ceramics before the year 1800, and therefore brings us down to the commencement of the present century. From 1800 to 1861 no less than three hundred and twenty-two patents were taken out for improvements in the potter’s art or in matters connected with that art. These will be briefly enumerated at the close of this work, and of many of them notices will be found incorporated in its body.

In the early part of this century, with the exception of the productions of a few houses, the state of the art was still at a low ebb; and, although improvements were constantly being made, when the great world-struggle took place in 1851, we, as a nation, were found to be lamentably behind some other countries, not only in the beauty of form and decoration of our ceramic productions, but even in quality of body and glaze. Between the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862 a marked improvement was effected, and this has gone on steadily extending itself, until now Great Britain, without exception, stands foremost of all the nations of earth in this art.

I now proceed, in succeeding chapters, to speak of the various earthenware and porcelain works and seats of pottery manufacture, of the kingdom.

In 1671, as I have already shown,[39] John Dwight took out a patent for “the mistery of transparent earthenware, comonly knowne by the names of Porcelaine or China, and Persian Ware,” &c. The patent runs as follows:—

This was the commencement of the Fulham Pottery, whose history I am about to attempt to trace, and which has continued uninterruptedly in work for more than two centuries.

Dwight appears to have been a man of considerable learning and ability. He graduated as M.A. at Christ Church, Oxford, and successively held the appointments of secretary to more than one Bishop of Chester. He seems to have long experimented upon clays and mineral products in the search after the body of which the oriental china was made, and at length to have brought those researches to a successful issue. Six years after the date of the first of his patents, Dr. Plot, the eminent antiquary and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, thus wrote of his discoveries in his “History of Oxfordshire”:—

Dwight having patented his discovery of “the mistery of transparent earthenware, commonly known by the names of Porcelaine or China, or Persia ware,” in April, 1671, it is perfectly clear that the discovery must have been made before that time, and that it must have been the result of a long series of patient trials and experiments. Thus, I think, we may safely say that the actual discovery was made some time prior to 1671. In 1684 the patent expired, and a new one granted, in June, for another term of fourteen years—this time the wares and articles being more specifically named. It is as follows:—

In 1694[40] Houghton thus, in his “Letters on Husbandry and Trade,” wrote[41] while speaking of the tobacco-pipe clays, “gotten at or nigh Pool, a post-town in Dorsetshire, and there dug in square pieces, of the bigness of about half a hundredweight each; from[124] thence ’tis brought to London, and sold in peaceable times at about eighteen shillings a ton, but now in this time of war is worth about three and twenty shillings,” And again he says: “This sort of clay, as I hinted formerly, is used to clay sugar; and the best sort of mugs are made with it, and the ingenious Mr. Daught of Fulham tells me that ’tis the same earth China-ware is made of, and ’tis made, not by lying long in the earth, but in the fire; and if it were worth while, we may make as good China here as any is in the world. And so for this time, farewel Clay.” Again, on “March 13, 1695,” he thus writes: “Of China-ware I see but little imported in the year 1694, I presume by reason of the war and our bad luck at sea. There came only from Spain certain, and from India certain twice. ’Tis a curious manufacture, and deserves to be encourag’d here, which without doubt money would do; and Mr. Dowoit at Fulham has done it, and can again in any thing that is flat: but the difficulty is that if a hollow dish be made, it must be burnt so much that the heat of the fire will make the sides fall. He tells me that our clay will very well do it; the main skill is in managing the fire. By my consent, the man that would bring it to perfection should have for his encouragement one thousand pound from the publick, though I help’d to pay a tax towards it.”

Although no specifications are preserved with Dwight’s patents,[42] I am enabled, through the extreme kindness and courtesy of the present owner of the works, C. I. C. Bailey, Esq., to give recipes for the manufacture of porcelain, &c., in Dwight’s own words, and copied from his own private pocket-books. These two extremely curious books were recently discovered among some old account books and their discovery throws considerable light on the history of the plastic art at this period. One of these books, which is bound in vellum, contains on its outside front cover the words:—

but the other contains many earlier entries, from 1691. Both the books are in Dwight’s own handwriting. Among the number of[125] curious recipes are the following, which possess more than ordinary interest.

[126]

Other recipes are:

These extracts will be amply sufficient to show the interest and importance of these curious old books which have so kindly been placed at my disposal for this work by their owner, Mr. Bailey, but I cannot refrain from giving some extracts of a totally different character. These relate to the way Mr. Dwight had of being his own banker by hiding his money in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners of his pot-works until wanted. Probably there may still be some of this “treasure-trove,” as well as his moulds and models, &c., to be turned on by some fortunate possessor of the place.

There are also many other matters of interest in these books; among them the names of

evidently in her own handwriting, and which I take to mean “Lydia Dwight, her book, Fulham, 15”—the 15 being her age, which is arrived at by adding the figures together as they occur in form of a cross, 1, 2, 8, and 4.

“Ly D. Lewin,” “Lydia Dwigh,” “Mrs. Deb Nel,” “Mrs. Deb N,” “Mary,” “Deb Nel,” “Miss Betty Osgood,” “Miss Lucy,” “Miss Betty Osgood,” and “Miss Molly Osgood,” are also scribbled in different parts of the book.

Dwight is stated to have buried, in like manner as he did his money, all his models, tools, moulds, &c., in some still-unknown secret hiding-place of his manufactory that his descendants might not continue that branch of the trade which he had been the first to invent; and very securely he has, evidently, done this; for, whatever may be found in future alterations and excavations, it is certain that these have never yet been brought to light. A few years ago, however, after taking down some of the old buildings, which had become much dilapidated, the workmen, while digging foundations for the new workshops, &c., discovered a vaulted chamber or cellar which had been firmly walled up, and which, on being broken into, was found to contain a number of stoneware grey-beards or bellarmines and ale-pots, &c., undoubtedly of Dwight’s manufacture. These were of the same form, precisely, as the old Cologne ones which they were intended to, and did, supersede in this country—and were those “fine stone gorges never before made in England”—and for which[128] his patent was granted. One of these, presented to me by the present proprietor of the works, Mr. Bailey, I here engrave (Fig. 338).

Nothing, at present, is known as to when the death of John Dwight took place, or who succeeded him. A Dr. Dwight died at Fulham in 1737, who, according to the Gentleman’s Magazine of that year, was “author of several curious treatises on physic. He was the first that found out the secret to colour earthenware like china;” but this was not John Dwight, as supposed by some writers, but Samuel Dwight, who, in 1722, published “De Vomitione, et Purgatione, eorumque excessu curando, necnon de emiticis Medicamentis, de Catharticis, et Variolis, et Morbillis;” in 1725, “De Hydropibus;” and in 1731, “De Febribus, Symptomaticis.” As the death of this Samuel Dwight took place in 1737, or sixty-six years after the date of John Dwight’s patent, the probability is that he was the son of John Dwight, and that his finding out the secret of colouring earthenware like china took place while engaged in his father’s business. About this time it would appear (probably after the death of Samuel Dwight) the business was carried on by a Margaret Dwight, in partnership with Thomas Warland, and these two—Margaret Dwight and Thomas Warland of Fulham, potters—became bankrupt in 1746. This lady is said afterwards to have married a Mr. White, or Wight, who continued the works. In 1762 “William White, of Fulham, in the county of Middlesex, potter,” took out a patent for the manufacture of “white crucibles or melting potts made of British materials, and never before made in England or elsewhere, and which I have lately sett up at Fulham aforesaid,” and which were composed of “Stourbridge clay and Dorsetshire clay, calcined; mix them with Woolwich sand and water, to be trodden with the feet, and then burned.” For these he had, in the previous year, obtained a premium from the Society of Arts. In 1795 the works were, according to Lysons, “carried on by Mr. White, a descendant in the female line of the first proprietor,”[129] and they were so continued until 1862, when, on the death of the then Mr. White, they passed into the hands of Messrs. Makintosh and Clements. Two years later, however, on the death of Mr. Makintosh, the works were sold to the present proprietor, Mr. C. I. C. Bailey, who shortly afterwards considerably enlarged and improved them; he having built a new factory and introduced the newest and most improved machinery.

The articles and the wares made by the Dwights will have been pretty well understood from the foregoing notice; but, in addition, it is essential to speak of some few well-authenticated examples which still exist. About the time of the sale in 1862, Mr. Baylis, of Priors Bank, obtained from the Fulham works a number—about twenty-five—of extremely curious and historically valuable specimens of the ware produced there by the Dwights, and kept in the family. Of these he sent a brief account to the Art-Journal,[48] a part of which I here transcribe:—

Other productions were flip-cans, gorges, grey beards, ale pots, bottles, mugs, single figures and groups, busts, statuettes, flasks, leaf-dishes, &c. In the Jermyn Street Museum are some examples of this ware, and others may be found in various private collections. Among the latter may be named an historically interesting flip-can, belonging to “Robinson Crusoe,” and carefully preserved by his family. It bears the incised inscription—

and is said to have been made for him in or about 1703.

The goods now made at these works, by Mr. Bailey, are glazed and unglazed stoneware, porous ware, terra-cotta, and china. In stoneware, or “Bristol ware,” all the usual domestic vessels—in bottles, pitchers, jars, pans, drinking-mugs, tobacco-pots, feet, carriage, and chest warmers, funnels, bird fountains, barrels, filters, &c.—are made very extensively, as also are drain and sanitary pipes, traps, &c., of every description. The stoneware is of the hardest, finest, and most durable character, and the glaze is remarkably good. To this excellent quality is to be attributed the success of these works, Mr. Bailey supplying, I believe, the large house of Crosse & Blackwell, as well as many distillers, chemists, and shippers, with their stoneware, both for home and export trade, and constantly increasing his business and premises. Works of art of a high order, in his stoneware, terra cotta, china, and other productions, are now executed. For the stoneware department, M. Cazin, late Director of the School of Art at Tours, in France, has been engaged chiefly to design figured and other fancy jugs, mugs, cannettes, &c. Some of these, with armorial bearings and other decorations in incised lines, or impressed, are remarkably good adaptations of the antique. A cannette, in my own possession, bearing the artist’s name, “CAZIN, 1872, STUDY,” is remarkably good, and gives evidence of great things to follow. Another example, also in my own possession, and made expressly for me, is of excellent form and[131] remarkably pure and simple design. It bears an admirably modelled armorial medallion, with arms, crests, helmet, mantling, &c., and is likewise decorated with incised and relief ornaments. On the bottom is the date, incised, “1873,” and on the handle the artist’s name, C. CAZIN, also incised. In 1872 Mr. Bailey received a medal at the Dublin Exhibition for his stoneware and terra cotta.

Mr. Bailey has introduced a marked improvement in the construction of filters—the water passing downwards at the back, and then rising in zig-zag direction by its own force to the tap at the top in front—thus the water has to travel a much further distance through the filtering matter (as shown by the arrows in the section) than the old method, and having to be taken a far more circuitous course, it is brought more thoroughly in contact with the purifying medium. The usual method is for the water to pass perpendicularly down or up, but in these filters the water is kept a considerable time in contact with the charcoal and other ingredients, and any sediment is left at the bottom, instead of forming a compact mass of filth for the water to pass through each time it is filled.

Terra-cotta stoves, of simple and effective construction, are also extensively made at these works. In “Sunderland Ware”—i.e. brown ware, white inside—cream pots, starch pans, milk bowls, dishes, trays, and basins are largely manufactured.

Chemical apparatus—receivers, retorts, evaporating dishes, condensing worms, filtering and other funnels, still heads, &c.,—are a speciality in these works, and are of high repute.

These various goods were thus spoken of in the Official Report of the International Exhibition, 1871:—

In terra-cotta, the Fulham Works now produce vases, statues, architectural enrichments, chimney shafts, stoves, &c., of very good quality and of admirable design; Mr. R. W. Martin, sculptor, student of the Royal Academy and Government Schools of Art,[132] having been engaged as modeller and designer. The productions in this department are of a very high order of merit, and will take rank with those of any other manufactory. The brackets and jardinières are of great beauty, and are characterised by a pure artistic feeling and a touch such as is seldom attained; the pieces bear evidence of being not only modelled by a clever artist, but of receiving finishing-touches by the master-hand itself. In colour the Fulham terra cotta is a light pink and a rich red, and, when these are combined, a peculiar delicacy and finished effect is produced. The mark R. W. Martin fecit occurs on the productions of this artist.

The manufacture of china ware was, during the year 1873, very wisely and successfully added to this establishment, and, with the aid of the good workmen and artists who have been engaged, has already done much to establish a fresh fame for Fulham. The art direction of this branch was placed by Mr. Bailey in the hands of Mr. E. Bennet, a well-known sculptor, while the china body flowers, &c., were undertaken by Mr. Hopkinson. I am the more particular in stating these arrangements as, being the beginning of a new manufacture, I am desirous of putting on record the circumstances of its commencement. The “body,” it may be well to note, is made from Dwight’s original recipe—the very body of which the first china ware made in England was produced—and therefore the “Fulham china” of to-day has an historical interest attached to it which is possessed by no other. It was a wise thought that induced Mr. Bailey to restore to Fulham the special manufacture which has rendered its name famous in the ceramic annals of this country; and it is to be hoped that the spirit he has shown will be amply compensated by a liberal patronage of his productions.

The marks used by Mr. Bailey are:—

At the 1871 Exhibition (at which no medals were given) Mr. Bailey’s productions were highly spoken of in the Official Report; and at the Dublin Exhibition of 1872 he was awarded a medal for his terra cotta and stoneware.

[133]

Lambeth has been a seat of pottery manufacture from an early period. In mediæval times the characteristic brown-ware pitchers, pans, tygs, &c., were made; and, later on, at this place was quite a colony of makers of Delft ware, who in turn gave place to stoneware manufacturers. China, too, appears to have been made at Lambeth from perhaps 1760, or thereabouts. It is recorded that in the middle of the seventeenth century the Delft ware manufacture commenced; but it is not unlikely that Rous and Cullyn, some years earlier, here established themselves in the making of “stone potts, stone jugs, and stone bottels,” for which they received a patent in 1626.[50] It is conjectured, and with some probability, that one of the Delft ware makers at this place was John Ariens Van Hamme, a Dutchman, who had come over from the Hague under the encouragement of our ambassador, who, as has already been shown,[51] took out a patent in 1676 for the “art of makeinge tiles and porcelane and other earthen wares, after the way practiced in Holland,” and who, with his staff of workmen, probably formed the nucleus of what was afterwards a nest of potters, comprising, according to the “History of Lambeth,” no less than twenty manufactories. In 1693 a trial took place in the Court of Exchequer concerning some parcels of potter’s clay which had been seized by the Custom House officers, under pretence that it was fuller’s earth. In this trial five London potters, William Knight, Thomas Harper, Henry De Wilde, John Robins, and Moses Johnson, gave evidence in favour of the clay being potter’s clay. There is nothing in the record of this trial to identify any of the five potters therein named with Lambeth; but the probability is that some of them belonged to that place. One of them, William Knight, was undoubtedly the “William Knight of the parish of St. Buttolph Without, Aldgate, London, Pottmaker,” concerning whom I give, from the original deed in my possession, some particulars under the head of “Aldgate;” some of the others were, I believe, of Lambeth. The account of the trial has been printed by my friend, Mr. Reeks, in the “Catalogue of the Museum of Practical Geology,” and is so interesting that I here reproduce it entire.

[134]

The Delft ware here made was of the ordinary kind, same as imported from Holland, and as that made in various English localities, and, being without mark, is not to be distinguished from others. Besides tiles, plates, jugs, mugs, dishes, &c., sack and other[136] wine bottles, apothecaries’ pill-slabs, wine-bin labels, &c., were made. Some of these pill-slabs are preserved in the Jermyn Street Museum, as are also some of the “sack-pots,” both of which may most probably, as well as the apothecaries’ jars, be ascribed to Lambeth. They are all of Delft ware, painted with blue, in the same manner as the tiles and other articles of this ware.

In 1820 there “were six or seven potters in Lambeth,” says Mr. Goddard, “working some sixteen small kilns, of seven or eight feet in diameter, the produce of each kiln being under £20 worth of ware, the principal articles made being blacking bottles, ginger-beer bottles (very extensively made still), porter and cider bottles (not so largely made now), spruce-beer bottles (gone, with the beer, quite out of fashion), ink bottles (more used now than ever), oil bottles, pickle jars, hunting jugs, &c. A few chemical vessels were also turned out well from one kiln belonging to an eccentric individual, whose chief boast was to drink a gallon of beer a day, and do without rest on Sundays.” In 1860: “In place of some sixteen kilns, turning out each under £20 per kiln, we have now about seventy, turning out each, perhaps, on an average £50. They consume upwards of 20,000 tons of coal, paying a corporation tax of say £2,100 per annum. The law requires this quantity to be burnt without smoke, and, after immense cost and labour, this difficulty may be called surmounted. Twenty-three thousand tons of clay are annually changed into useful articles, giving employment to more than eight hundred persons. The returns of the Lambeth potters cannot be estimated at less than £140,000.”

High Street.—From about 1750 to 1770 the Delft ware works were carried on by a Mr. Griffiths, who had, for those days, a large establishment. A curious reference to this manufactory occurs in the following extract from the Monthly Magazine for 1797. A man, at that time unknown, but who turned out to be James Doe, a potter, committed suicide by drowning, on the 14th of September in that year, at Sea Mill Docks, two and a half miles from Bristol, having remained “fasting and praying,” without food or bedding in the ruined building there from the 11th, waiting opportunity and determination to commit the rash act; and having, during the whole of that time, written a kind of diary of his feelings and intentions, his hopes and fears, on the walls of the old room he remained in. Mr. Joseph James interested himself much in the matter, and wrote an account for the Monthly Magazine; and this, and the inquest, and[137] other means he took, resulted in the discovery of the name and some particulars of the life of the suicide. Two of the letters forwarded in October, 1797, are highly interesting as showing at what works he had been employed. The first letter is from London, from “a respectable proprietor of a pottery there,” and thus runs:—

The following is an extract from the letter alluded to:—

[138]

In the possession of Mr. R. C. Ring is a mug painted by Doe—said to be his last work. It is signed “J. Doe, Sept., 1797;” and as he committed suicide on the 14th of that month, it would certainly be one of his last productions. Mr. Owen’s assertion that he committed suicide through a fear that that painting would injure the enameller’s trade is, from the above letters, &c., amply shown to be without foundation.

Coades.—Coade’s Artificial Stone Works, at Pedlar’s Acre, King’s Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall, Lambeth, opposite Whitehall Stairs or Ferry, were established about 1760 by Mrs. or the Misses Coade, under the name of “Coade’s Lithodipyra, Terra Cotta, or Artificial[139] Stone Manufactory.” This material was intended to take the place of carved stone for vases, statues, and architectural enrichments. In 1769 the two Misses Coade took into partnership their cousin, a Mr. Sealy (the nephew of Mr. Coade), and by these the works were carried on. In 1811 the firm was still “Coades & Sealy.” At the death of Mr. Sealy, who survived the Misses Coade, a Mr. Croggan, who had for a long time been a clerk or manager attached to the business, became the proprietor of the works, which he continued for many years. He then disposed of the business to Messrs. Routledge, Greenwood, & Keene, who were succeeded by Messrs. Routledge & Lucas. These gentlemen, about 1840, dissolved partnership and sold off all their moulds, models, plant, &c., by auction, by Messrs. Rushworth & Jarvis, of Saville Row. Many of these moulds and models were bought by Mr. Blashfield[52] and by other manufacturers, among whom was Mr. H. M. Blanchard of Blackfriars Road[53] (which see), and who, being an apprentice with the Coades, and possessing many of their models, &c., claims to be their successor.

The Coades are said to have come from Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, and probably it was for the purpose of turning their native clay to good account in London that induced them to establish this manufactory. Bacon, Flaxman, Banks, Rossi, and Panzetta, the sculptors, were employed to model for these works, and many of the old mansions and public buildings in London and in the country, as well as abroad—including the bas-relief in the pediment over the western portico of Greenwich Hospital, representing the death of Nelson, designed by Benjamin West, and modelled by Bacon and Panzetta; and the rood-screen of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor; the statue of Britannia on the Nelson monument at Yarmouth, &c.—were executed at these works. The works principally produced at Coades were capitals of columns, statues, vases, bassi-relievi, monuments, coats of arms, keystones, angle rusticated blocks, balustrades, &c. They were of durable quality and excellent manufacture.

Another person employed at Coades was William John Coffee, who afterwards attained some celebrity as a modeller at the Derby China Works, and as a terra cotta maker, for a short time, at Derby. I believe he was employed as a fire-man at Coades, and here, no doubt, being a clever fellow, picked up his knowledge of modelling[140] and of mixing bodies. The following curious letter and “information,” from the originals in my own possession, give some highly interesting particulars regarding Coades’ and Sealy’s manufactory in 1790:—

In 1792 the following letter, also in my own possession, was addressed to Coffee by Miss E. Coade, and shows what a clear-headed, right-minded, and well-disposed employer she was:—

[141]

The London Pottery is in High Street, Lambeth. It was established on a small scale in 1751, on a portion of old “Hereford House,” the palace of one of the former bishops of Hereford, and has been carried on without intermission, from that time to the present. In 1840 the manufactory came into the hands of Mr. James Stiff, the head of the present firm of “Messrs. James Stiff & Sons.” At that time the works consisted only of two kilns (the larger one being only about ten feet in diameter), and covered an area of probably less than a quarter of an acre of ground. Since 1840 it has been gradually developed, until at the present time it comprises fourteen kilns (some of them more than twenty feet in diameter) and covers an area of about two acres of ground. It has a very extensive frontage on the Albert Embankment, overlooking the river Thames, and by means of a private dock, with entrance under the Embankment, is enabled directly to carry on a very extensive export trade, and also to import most economically the coals, clay, and other raw material used in the production of brown and white stoneware, terra-cotta, &c. Until 1860, when fresh buildings were erected, a Delft-ware sign-board existed in the front of this pottery.

The four principal kinds of pottery manufactured by Messrs. Stiff and Sons are: 1. Brown salt-glazed stoneware, in which the[142] tubular socket drain-pipes so extensively made here are produced; water-filters, jugs, bottles, jars, and all kinds of chemical apparatus are also made in this class of ware. 2. White stoneware or “double-glazed” ware, or “Bristol ware,” in which salt is not used, but the glazing is obtained by the application of a liquid glaze to the interior and exterior of each article before it is placed in the kiln. This ware, which is generally made with a rich yellow ochre on the upper parts of goods, while the lower part is of a creamy-white colour, has only been introduced into Lambeth about twenty years. It has, however, to a considerable extent superseded the old brown stoneware, on account of its superior appearance and cleanliness. 3. Buff terra-cotta, in which is made garden vases, pedestals, chimney-tops, window arches, string-courses, &c. This terra-cotta, being thoroughly vitrified, is valuable for the manufacture of keystones, springers, string-courses, &c., for buildings where durability is of the very highest importance; one great advantage (for architectural purposes) lying in the fact that, in it, the choicest and most elaborate patterns, either raised or countersunk, can be obtained at little more than the cost of perfectly plain stone. 4. Porous ware, in which round and square porous cells, plates, &c., are extensively made, and have been used by some of the first telegraphic engineers, philosophical instrument makers, &c., of the day, and have given much satisfaction, securing, as they do, the greatest amount of porosity, together with a degree of hardness and fineness of texture which render them insusceptible of disintegration.

The quality of the stoneware or “Bristol ware” produced at the “London Pottery” is remarkably good, being extremely hard, and covered with an excellent, clear, and firm glaze, not surpassed by any other house. The same remark will apply to the porous ware, which is fine in composition, and possesses to an eminent degree the porous quality so essential in vessels of this description. The terra-cotta goods are of very fine, hard, and durable quality, and of a peculiarly pleasing tone of colour. Their artistic execution is of a high order, and some of the designs—as notably the draped bowl and flower-pots which are engraved on Figs. 340 to 342, and 345, 346.

Messrs. Stiff & Sons produce a large number of filters of excellent construction and of artistic design. Some of these have Gothic arches, with figures or armorial decorations, and others are decorated with elegant foliage; two of these effective designs are shown on Figs. 343 and 344. These filters have been more than thirty years[144] before the public. The filtering medium consists of alternate layers of charcoal, silica, and another purifying substance, all carefully cleansed, and so arranged as to retain full efficiency for eight or ten years without further cost or trouble. The “Popular” filter—intended for common use among all classes—purifies eight gallons of water per day, and is sold complete and fitted for a mere trifle.

The potteries of Messrs. Stiff & Son are among the largest in London. They employ about two hundred hands, and their annual import of raw material, clay, coals, &c., is about 15,000 tons. They have business relations in almost all parts of the world, and their manufactures have been admitted to the principal International Exhibitions; their terra-cotta vases combine excellence of finish with correctness of design, and are sold at very moderate prices. Their stoneware chemical apparatus has a very wide reputation, and their drain-pipes and other sanitary appliances, comprising nearly two-thirds of their business, have an immense sale.

It is well to add that at this pottery antique jugs and water-jugs, of excellent design and clever manipulation, are made. The forms are chaste and good, and they have, partly owing to the care in making, and partly to the fineness of the glaze, a pleasanter feel to the hand than others. The carriage and foot warmers, &c., made here are also extremely good in quality and design.

The Lambeth Pottery.—In 1818 Mr. John Doulton established stoneware works at Vauxhall, and soon afterwards was joined in partnership by Mr. John Watts, the business being carried on under the style of Doulton & Watts. Some years after, the works were removed to High Street, Lambeth, to premises near those which had formerly been occupied by Mr. Griffiths, already spoken of. In 1858 Mr. Watts died, and from that time to the present the manufactory has been carried on by Mr. John Doulton in co-partnership with his sons, under the style of Doulton & Watts, and Henry Doulton & Co. In 1854 Mr. Henry Doulton took out a patent for “improvements in kilns used in the manufacture of stoneware, earthenware, and china.” In 1859 he took out another patent for “improvements in earthenware jars and bottles,” and in 1861 the same gentleman also patented his “improvements in the construction of vats and similar vessels for containing liquids.” At the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, medals were awarded to this firm, as they were also at the Exhibitions at Paris, Hamburg, Oporto, New Zealand, Auxerre, Caen, and Amsterdam. At the International[145] Exhibitions of 1871 and 1872 they also received the highest commendation.

The goods manufactured by Messrs. Doulton & Co. include chemical vessels of large size (up to 500 gallons) and all kinds of stoneware suitable for the laboratory and works of the manufacturing chemist—jars, bottles, jugs, water-filters, and other articles of domestic use; terra-cotta for architectural and gardening purposes; drainage pipes, irrigation conduits, sinks, and all kinds of sanitary ware; plumbago and other crucibles, muffles, furnaces, &c.: and, in addition to their manufactory at Lambeth, they have works for the manufacture of sewer pipes, fire goods, blue bricks, &c., at Rowley-Regis, Staffordshire; Smethwick, Staffordshire; and St. Helen’s, Lancashire. The various kinds of stoneware and terra-cotta produced by Messrs. Doulton at their Lambeth works give employment to about six hundred men; and their consumption of coals at Lambeth alone (exclusive of the quantity used in their Staffordshire and Lancashire factories) is over 10,000 tons per annum.

In stoneware—which, like every other branch of the ceramic art,[146] has made great progress during the last twenty or thirty years, and has been made applicable to scores of purposes never dreamed of by the potters of old—Messrs. Doulton produce, to a very large extent, bottles, jars, pitchers, and jugs; troughs and pans; feet, carriage, bed, and other warmers; barrels and taps; filters, filter-stands, and drip-pans, and every possible variety of household vessels. Besides these, force-pumps, retorts, receivers, condensing-worms, still-heads, evaporating dishes and pans, filtering-funnels, percolators, and every[148] other conceivable kind of chemical and manufacturing vessels and apparatus, as well as drain-pipes, gullies, sinks, and sanitary goods, are largely made.

Many of the productions in this stoneware are of extremely artistic character, and evince a purity of taste which is highly meritorious. Some of the jugs and tankards, from antique examples, and which are produced both in brown, blue, claret, and fine white stoneware, are remarkably chaste and elegant, and remind one of the best periods of German and Flemish art. The forms are admirable, and the decorations, whether foliage or animal, incised or in relief, are always thoroughly well considered, and especially adapted to the material, the mode of production, and the use of the object. “There are no affected imitations of antique types. The spirit of true design is caught with admirable perception and insight, and when colour is introduced, it is done sparingly, and with a view to enhance the form of the object and the natural beauty of the material, rather than to conceal either the one or the other.”

In terra-cotta, Messrs. Doulton’s works rank high, both for the beauty of their productions, the variety of designs they have introduced, and the durability and excellence of their material. In vases for gardens, &c.—the finest of which is their Amazon vase (Fig. 354) sent to the Exhibition of 1871—Messrs. Doulton produce a large number of exquisite patterns, as they do also of pedestals, fountains, garden-seats, flower-boxes, and vases, fern-cases, flower-pendants, mignionette-boxes, brackets, terminals, &c., which are all characterized by extreme excellence of design and workmanship. In statuary and architectural decorations the productions consist of figures, busts, and medallions; keystones, arches, trusses, and string-courses; capitals, bases, and finials; window and door heads and jambs; rain-water heads, of marvellously bold and effective design; parapets and balustrades; panels of coloured stoneware and terra-cotta, modelled in very high relief, and mostly of scriptural subjects, for out-door decoration; tiles and bosses of endless design—some ornamented in the sgraffito style, and others richly coloured; and everything requisite for the architect or the builder. Of terra-cotta flower-pots and fern-cases a large variety are made, all elegant in shape—some ornamented with masks and medallions, and others with vegetable composition; and of brackets and pendants the specimens are very graceful. Painting on pottery has also of late been introduced into this manufactory with very good results.

[150]

One class of objects to which attention should be called, presents, in ordinary clays, adaptations in which is conspicuous all the play of the chastest Greek contours, with all the forms dear to successive generations of housewives before the revival set in. Prominent are claret cups, loving cups, hot and cold water jugs, flower vases, candlesticks, hunting jugs, pitchers, and inkstands, with a great variety of other vessels. “What particularly arrests the eye in this branch of the manufacture is, that each object has a style which now takes us back to the flowery periods of Doric and Etruscan forms, now to the days of mediæval hospitalities, or to modern instances, by vessels of form and capacity which would delight even the hearts of the notoriously beer-loving Burschenschaft of Jena. And it is necessary to explain that, as these works are not the results of the common course of earthenware production, it has cost much thought and the exercise of much knowledge and ingenuity to appoint a confederacy of labour so particularly qualified as shall work successfully to this special end.” The ornament is principally the sgraffimento, or incised outline, which is effected sometimes as soon as the vessel leaves the wheel, or more generally after it has been allowed partially to dry to a consistency which will allow of its being handled, though yet sufficiently soft to admit of being easily worked upon. To the designs thus engraved in outline, especially to the leafage, colour is applied with an ordinary water-colour brush, and burnt in. This ware is called “Doulton ware,” or “Sgraffito ware,” and no two pieces are formed alike. With regard to the body it will be sufficient to say that the great strength of stoneware in comparison with that of earthenware, and also its perfect cleanliness, have secured its adoption, whether produced by this or any of the other eminent firms who manufacture it, in all kinds of appliances in connection with drainage and sanitary engineering; and the perfect resistance it offers to the strongest acids, proves the material to be admirably fitted for the manufacture of every kind of vessel and apparatus employed in trades depending in any degree on chemical operations.

Fore Street.—A manufactory of various kinds of pottery existed here in the beginning of the present century, and was carried on by Mr. Richard Waters, who in June, 1811, took out a patent for “a new method of manufacturing pottery ware.” First, “in the fabrication of various articles of considerable magnitude,” “instead of throwing or[151] moulding them on a revolving table, the clay is made into sheets and then applied upon moulds and finished, by beating or pressure, or by turning while in a revolving state;” second, forming “delf-ware pots and other articles by compression of the clay between suitable moulds;” third, “making or clouding the ‘Welsh ware,’ by using a number of pipes instead of one in distributing the colour;” fourth, “making earthenware jambs, tiles for facing houses, and for paving hearths, balustrades, balconies, and bricks vein-coloured, variegated either by the last process or by putting together masses differing from each other,” and in the admixture of stony or metallic or other mineral substances, so as to differ in their colours and appearance when baked; fifth, by this process making “figures, statues, ornaments, armorial bearings, and the like;” sixth, by this process making “stone mortars and pestles, cisterns, coffins, worms for distillers’ use, tiles, with a hook on the back instead of a knob, also with a higher edge and deeper return than usual.”

Imperial Pottery.—Another pottery at Lambeth was that of Messrs. Green & Co., which in 1858 passed, by purchase, into the hands of Mr. John Cliff, by whom it was considerably enlarged. Mr. Cliff here brought into use his own “patent kiln for what is known as double glaze or Bristol glaze kiln, and a circular bag for the salt glaze and pipe kiln, since adopted generally.” Here also Carr’s “Disintegrant” was first proved and got to work; and here, under his own eye, Siemens’s gas furnace was tried on pottery. Here also Mr. Cliff brought out, and into work, his patent wheel and patent lathe—two most important improvements in the potter’s art, and said to be the most perfect and convenient machines extant. The works were closed in 1869, through the site being required by the Metropolitan Board of Works for improvements, and Mr. Cliff removed to Runcorn, in Cheshire, where he still continues his manufactory.[55] The works were originally established for the manufacture of common red ware; but after a time Mr. Green added a little salt-glazed ware; and then, as the double glazed gained favour, added it, and made it his principal business, giving up the red ware entirely. Later still, he manufactured drain pipes and a good deal of chemical stoneware; and, besides all the usual articles, filters were here extensively made for the celebrated George Robins, the[153] auctioneer. The old works were many times much injured by fire—being nearly destroyed just before passing into Mr. Cliff’s hands in 1858.

Crispe’s China.—Crispe of Bow Churchyard is said to have had a manufactory of china ware at Lambeth in the middle of last century; and to him John Bacon, the sculptor, is stated to have been apprenticed in 1755. But little is known of this manufactory of Crispe’s, but reference to him and to his connection with the china trade will be made in another part of this book.

Several other potteries—one carried on by Mr. Northen, who was an apprentice to Mr. White of Fulham—existed at Lambeth, but have been removed, like the “Imperial,” by the improvements on the banks of the Thames.

The terra-cotta works of Messrs. M. H. Blanchard, Son, & Co., were established in 1839 by Mr. Blanchard, who served his apprenticeship with Messrs. Coade & Sealey at Lambeth, and they are still carried on by him and his sons and other partners under the above style.

The terra-cotta goods manufactured by this firm are of remarkably fine and good quality, and consist of vases, tazzas, statues, busts, groups of figures, brackets, pedestals, terminals, crosses, fountains, balustrades, trusses, and every species of architectural enrichment. In 1851, and again in 1862, as well as at the Paris Exhibition, Mr. Blanchard was awarded medals for his terra-cotta goods, and they are considered to be among the best produced, either in this country or on the Continent. Among the more successful of the works executed by them may be named the terra-cotta for the Brighton Aquarium; the permanent buildings, South Kensington Museum; the columns, &c., of the arcades in the Royal Horticultural Gardens; the Charing Cross and Cannon Street hotels and termini; the Grosvenor mansions; the Grand Hotel, Cairo; and the chastely beautiful and effective enrichments of the Wedgwood Institute, Burslem. Of this last, as one of the greatest achievements of ceramic art, as applied to external decoration of buildings, I give a series of engravings. The principal features of these designs are a series of twelve nearly square panels, in alto-relievo, representing the months of the year—each month being represented by a seated, recumbent, or stooping life-size figure, with the attribute[154] of the season; and a series of oblong panels or plaques, representing, in similar relief, all the more striking details of the work of the potter, thus, very appropriately, illustrating the staple trade of the district in which the Wedgwood Institute is situated. Of the months, the four illustrations here given (Figs. 364 to 367) will convey a correct idea.

[155]

Of the general high character for design and workmanship of the productions of Mr. Blanchard—who ranks among the best in the kingdom—the objects here engraved will give abundant testimony; and it only remains to add that the quality of the material and its durability are fully equalled by the excellence of design of the various articles produced by this firm.

[156]

Thomas Houghton, to whom I have in other parts of this work referred, in his “Husbandry and Trade Improved,” writing on March 13, 1695–6, says, speaking of the imports during the year 1694, “of teapots there came but ten, and those from Holland. To our credit be it spoken, we have about Faux-Hall (as I have been informed) made a great many, and I cannot gainsay but they are as good as any come from abroad.” In 1714 Thoresby writes that he “went by water to Fox-Hall and the Spring-gardens. After dinner we viewed the pottery and various apartments there. Was most pleased with that where they were painting divers colours, which yet appear more beautiful and of divers colours when baked.” The Vauxhall Pottery is said to have been situated close by Vauxhall Bridge, in High Street. The Delft-ware Pottery in Princess Street, Lambeth, is said to have belonged to the same works. The Vauxhall Pottery, which was for the production of stoneware similar to that at Lambeth, was carried on towards the close of last century by a Mr. Wagstaffe; and on his death, in or about 1803, it passed into the hands of his nephew, Mr. John Wisker, who carried it on until his decease in 1838, he having, in 1833, taken out a patent “for certain improvements in machinery or apparatus for grinding covers or stoppers for jars, bottles, and other vessels made of china, stone, or other earthenware,” such as are described in the patent of Robert Burton Cooper taken out in 1831. On the death of Mr. Wisker, the works were purchased of his executors by Mr. Alfred Singer, but have been discontinued and pulled down; and the site built over, for some years. At these works Mr. Singer, in conjunction with Mr. Henry Pether, manufactured small tiles, or tesseræ, for tesselated pavements. In 1839 they took out a patent “for certain improvements in the preparation and combination of earthenware or porcelain, for the purpose of mosaic or tesselated work” “by cutting clay or other plastic material into rectilinear figures, by means of intersecting wires stretched in a frame,” and “the forming of ornamental slabs of mosaic work by cementing together small pieces of porcelain or earthenware, of various figures and colours, on slabs of slate, stone, or other suitable material.”

There was another pottery at Vauxhall, where coarse red or[157] brown ware was made, and where also, later on, a fine stoneware was produced. There was also a manufactory of white stoneware carried on, in 1811, by a Mr. Joseph Kishire.

In 1690 William Knight was a “Pottmaker” in “the parish of St. Buttolph without Aldgate, London,” and made “white ware.” In that year he had conveyed to him, by deed, some premises which were situated “by the river running from Merton Mill to Wandsworth, in the county of Surrey,” and consisted in part of a mill, “used for a colour-mill for grinding colours for the glazeing of white ware” made by him. The original deed, which is in my own possession, was first made public by me in my “Reliquary,” and is altogether one of the most interesting contributions to the history of the ceramic art in England which has of late been made. The deed is as follows:—

The deed, which is sealed with the arms of Crispe, is thus attested on the back, “Sealed and Delivered in the presence of

[160]

The William Knight, “pott maker,” of this deed was the same William Knight whose name appears three years later on, in 1693, along with those of Thomas Harper, Henry De Wilde, John Robins, and Moses Johnson—“all potters in London”—in the curious “Brief Account of the Evidence given on behalf of Edmund Warner” in a trial in the Court of Exchequer, concerning a parcel of Potter’s clay which had been wrongfully seized as Fuller’s-earth, given on page 134.

“Mary Crispe of the parish of St. Andrewe, Holborne, in the county of Middx., widow, late wife of Ellis Crispe, late of Wimbledon, in the county of Surry, Esquire, deceased, and Samuel Crispe of the Inner Temple, London, Gent., Son and Heire of the said Ellis Crispe,” were, there can be but little doubt, of the same family to which, later on, Crispe, the china manufacturer, belonged.

Mr. Blashfield, now of the Stamford Terra-cotta Works, who had previously been engaged in the plastic, scagliola, and cement business, commenced the manufacture of terra-cotta vases, statues, chimney-shafts, &c., turning to good account the models he had used in his former business and those he had acquired from Coades. These works he carried on until 1858, when he removed to Stamford, in Lincolnshire, and opened his present large manufactory.

Delft-ware works appear to have been in existence here in the seventeenth century. At the close of the eighteenth they were taken by Mr. Wagstaffe, of the Vauxhall Pottery, and passed with them to his nephew, Mr. Wisker, about the year 1804, and were by him continued for the manufacture of Delft and stone-wares until 1820 or 1821, when he removed the whole concern to Vauxhall. Two examples of Mortlake Delft-ware—a large punch-bowl, twenty-one inches in diameter, painted in blue, with birds, flowers, &c.; and a set of twelve tiles, also painted in blue, with landscape, ruins, figures, &c., are in the South Kensington Museum. They were removed from the old factory.

[161]

Gravel Lane.—In the beginning of last century a pottery was carried on by Nathaniel Oade, connected with whom and whose business a shocking circumstance is detailed in the Post Boy of March 1st, 1718. It appears that Oade had a family of four sons, who were determined to have the business and house made over to them, leaving him to exist on what property he had acquired. This he declined to do; when they swore they would have it in spite of him, and soon afterwards had him arrested on judgment in a sham action in the Marshalsea Court for £500, and thrown into prison. The sons then, with their vile attorney, conveyed arms and a store of provisions into the house, and at once turned their mother and servants out and barricaded the place. “In their rage they shot a woman who was passing by; also their own mother and a servant who would not give up possession of the books of account. The constables and the military at length arriving, they capitulated.” The youngest son and another man were executed for the murder; the others were found guilty of manslaughter. In 1750 the roof of a pottery belonging to Mr. Oade was thrown down by an earthquake, and an account of the circumstance was sent to the Royal Society by William Jackson, a potter.

The manufacture of porcelain at Isleworth was commenced by Joseph Shore in 1760, and was continued to be made about forty years. In 1795 Lysons says: “There is a china manufactory at Isleworth belonging to Messrs. Shore & Co.” In 1800 it was discontinued, but the stock is said to have remained on the premises until 1830, when the works, having in the meantime been used for the manufacture of earthenware—principally “Welsh” or “streaked” ware,—were closed. A few years afterwards the manufactory was removed to Hounslow, and the site converted to other purposes. Joseph Shore is said to have come from the Worcester China Works, and his partner and principal painter, Richard Goulding, was his son-in-law, who was, later on, assisted by his son, William Goulding Wm. Goulding,
June 20th, 1770.
   ✳ (a dated piece of his having the name as in the margin). I am inclined, however, to think that Joseph Shore must have[162] originally belonged to the Derby China Works, as several of that name were connected with them. After Shore’s death, the works were continued by the Gouldings. The works were at Railshead Creek, by the ferry side.

A manufacture of porcelain was carried on here in the middle of last century; for Jonas Hanway, writing in 1750–1, says, “It is with great satisfaction that I observe the manufactories of Bow, Chelsea, and Stepney have made such a considerable progress.”

In 1747 it appears there was a small manufactory of china here, but nothing is known of its history. In the London Tradesman of that year occurs this note:—“Of late we have made some attempts to make porcelain or chinaware, after the manner it is done in China and Dresden. There is a house at Greenwich, and another at Chelsea, where the undertakers have been for some time trying to imitate that beautiful manufacture.”

Ransome’s Patent Stone Works.—These works, situated at Blackwall Lane, East Greenwich, were established at Ipswich in 1844, and removed to this locality in January, 1866. In 1871 the present company was incorporated in extension of the preceding firm. Mr. Frederick Ransome, the inventor of the processes, is a member of the well-known Ipswich family, and was in early life connected[163] with the Orwell Works firm of Ransomes and Sims. It was while there, and noticing a workman engaged in dressing a millstone, that he conceived the idea of producing artificial stone, capable of being moulded to any form, and to be a perfect imitation, both in appearance and substance, of the blocks taken from our best quarries. At the commencement Mr. Ransome had, as I have said, his stoneworks at Ipswich. For ten years the difficulties he had to encounter were very great, but he persevered, and, though often discouraged, toiled and experimented on scientific principles until he succeeded in making not only perfectly equable and homogeneous grindstones, with keen cutting powers, and that need no dressing, but also ornamental and decorative stonework of ornate character, which has been well introduced in the Brighton Aquarium, London Docks, Albert Bridge, the Indian Court, Whitehall, St. Thomas’s Hospital, &c., the University of Calcutta and other buildings in India, and for ornamental buildings in France, Belgium, Holland, Egypt, Turkey, China (where a splendid fountain of Ransome stone adorns the public gardens at Hong Kong), and other countries. The demand for this artificial stone becoming much extended, the inventions were taken up by a company, and extensive works were erected at East Greenwich, to which the business was transferred, Mr. Ransome continuing with the company as managing director.

The works are of great extent, and occupy a space of about four acres, that was formerly a dreary waste, on the banks of the Thames. They are connected with the river by a tramway and a jetty, supplied with a powerful derrick. The works consist of a large covered building, with a dividing wall across the centre, in which there are two openings for the tramways that are laid from one end to the other, and on which the work is conveyed from one point to another as the different processes require.

The material is, to all intents and purposes, a pure sand-stone, whose silicious particles are bound together by a cement of silicate of lime—a mineral substance well known to be of the most indestructible nature; its composition, mechanically and chemically, is precisely that of the Craigleith and other best quality building-stones. It can be moulded to any form while in a plastic state, and can be worked with the chisel the same as any natural stone. The process of manufacture is based upon one of the most beautiful of chemical reactions; flints are dissolved by means of caustic alkali under high pressure, so as to form silicate of soda, a kind of waterglass.[164] This viscous and tenacious substance is then rapidly mixed with a proportion of very fine and sharp silicious sand in a pug mill, so as to form a soft, plastic mass, which can be moulded into any shape that is desired. The soft stone is next immersed in a bath of chloride of calcium solution, which is made to penetrate every pore by means of hydraulic or atmospheric pressure. Whenever this solution comes into contact with the silicate of soda the two liquids are mutually and instantaneously decomposed, the silica taking possession of the calcium and forming the hard, solid silicate of lime, and the soda uniting with the chlorine to form chloride of sodium in a small quantity. Instead, then, of the particles of sand being covered with a thin film of the liquid silicate of soda, they are covered and united together with a film of solid silicate of lime—one of the most indestructible substances known. The small quantity of soluble chloride of sodium, one of the results of decomposition, is then washed out of the stone by a douche of clean water, or by hydraulic pressure, its complete removal being ensured by chemical tests. The stone is then dried and is fit for use.

The productions of these works may be said to comprise most of the useful as well as ornamental purposes to which stone can be applied. In the ornamental departments, vases of admirable design and of great variety, fountains, tazzas (in these three departments some two hundred different designs are produced), terminals, flower-boxes, flower-pots, tree-pots, garden edgings, &c. Figures and busts are also produced. In the more useful architectural departments, chimney-pieces, balustrades, chimney-shafts and tops, window-heads, vases, plinths, capitals, and many other articles are made, as well as memorial crosses, gravestones, cemetery numbers and labels, and other mortuary articles, of such excellent design and finish as to take the place of real stone, at a great reduction of cost.[165] Another speciality of the productions of these works is the manufacture of grindstones and scythe-stones. These are said to preserve their cutting edges better than stones dressed in the ordinary way. Filters, too, for reservoirs, are made extensively, and have the reputation of being the most effective of any introduced. Pavement tiles, both red, white, grey, and other colours, and also inlaid in different patterns, are made. These, among other places, have been adopted on the new Albert Bridge, at Chelsea, with good effect, and are giving entire satisfaction, on account of their great hardness, strength, and non-liability to become slippery.

Another admirable and important element of Mr. Ransome’s inventions is the applying of the silicate of lime to the preservation of stone. The sculpture on St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, the Custom House at Greenock, Trinity College, Dublin, and many other public buildings, have been successfully treated with this solution, which hardens and renders the surface indestructible by time or weather.

The trade mark of the company, which is the only mark used in this manufactory, is a winged genius grinding an arrow, from an antique gem at Rome. It is shown on Fig. 373. The works are under the personal superintendence of Mr. A. Pye-Smith, with Mr. Frederick Ransome as consulting chemist; Mr. Bessemer is the chairman.

In the seventeenth century a pottery existed here, where were manufactured melting-pots, “the best in the world, especially for founders.” These were in great repute, and gradually superseded those imported from Holland, Germany, and Denmark.

[166]

About 1830 the manufacture of earthenware (commenced by Joseph Shore and carried on after his death by his son and grandson Richard and William Goulding) at Isleworth was removed to Hounslow, but died out in the course of a year or two, and has not been renewed.

“Nonsuch Pottery.”—A pottery existed here in the early part of last century, but about, or soon after, 1790, the bed of clay having been exhausted, it was discontinued. About 1800 the steward of the Nonsuch estates, on which the pottery was situated, gave permission for a new pottery to be established wherever the clay could be found; and soon afterwards the present “Nonsuch Pottery” was opened in Nonsuch Park. It was founded by Mr. William Richard Waghorn, who was joined in partnership by his son. This firm continued the works until 1851, when they were transferred to Mr. Swallow, who had, until that time, been their foreman. By him and his partner, Mr. Stone, the business was continued under the style of “Stone and Swallow,” and by them a pottery—principally for the manufacture of fire-bricks—was established at Epsom. Mr. Swallow died in 1866 or 1867, and since then his partner, Mr. Stone, continued the works alone: they are known as the “Nonsuch Pottery,” or as “Stone’s Ewell and Epsom Potteries.” The goods manufactured by Mr. W. Waghorn were “Italian tiling”—used very extensively in the buildings of the time and remarkable for their strength and durability; ornamental roof tiles; ridge tiles; “Nonsuch Fire Bricks;” “Nonsuch Fire Loam;” paving and other tiles; moulded bricks, &c., for Gothic buildings; ornamented chimney-pots; pipes; flower-pots and vases, &c.; and on their lists was a view of the old Nonsuch Palace, with an historical notice of the same. At the present time the same descriptions of goods are produced—the mark, where used, being simply the words “Stone & Co.”

[167]

A pottery was worked here, about 1840, by Messrs. Waghorn, of the Ewell Pottery; but on their retiring, in 1851, was transferred to Mr. Baker, by whom it was worked until 1868, when he was succeeded by Messrs. Cowley & Aston. It was closed in 1869. In the same year another pottery was opened by Mr. Henry Clark, by whom it is still carried on, for the manufacture of ornamental and plain flower-pots, rustic fern-stands, vases, chimney-pots, drain-tiles, &c. They are of a bright red colour, and when a mark is used, it is simply “Henry Clark, Cheam Pottery.”

The West Kent Potteries were opened in 1820, before which time other works were in operation and carried on by the steward of Lord Sydney, the owner of the estate, for the manufacture of wares for the use of the estate. At Christmas, 1822, the works were taken by Mr. Pascall, who continued to carry them on until January, 1869, when he died in the ninety-second year of his age. Since then it has been carried on by his sons, Messrs. Pascall Brothers, the present owners. The productions of the works are the ordinary red-ware flower and root pots, sea-kale pots, and other horticultural ware: building and paving bricks and tiles; roofing and ridge tiles; drain, socket, and other pipes; chimney-tops, &c. Messrs. Pascall are patentees of the famous West Kent flower-pots with loose bottoms, celebrated for their convenience for changing and examining the roots; and of the patent sea-kale pots for growing sea-kale in hothouses. The works are extensive, and the production of horticultural-ware is large.

“Chelsea buns,” “Chelsea pensioners,” and “Chelsea china” are surely three things, each one in itself sufficient to make a place famous, but when brought together, a three-fold fame must certainly attach to the locality which has given them a name. With the buns and the pensioners, however, I disclaim all connection in my present work. The former are not sufficiently works of Art-manufacture to entitle them to a place in our columns, and the latter are certainly not articles of virtù which can be collected together and stowed away under glass shades by the connoisseur. And yet the “Chelsea Bun-house” has its story—full of interest and of incident—and the “Hospital” has a history and a host of associations connected with it, which render these two places memorable, and give them an imperishable interest. It is with the “China”—the third of the matters I have named, and of whose story the least is known—that I have now to do. The establishment of the Bun-house, and its history to the latest time, is easily traced out and written; the foundation of the Hospital, and the events which have from time to time filled it with pensioners, are matters of record which are easily gathered together; but the formation of the china works, and many of the changes the establishment has undergone, are lost to us, and will be difficult to recover. It is my object here to attempt to get back so much as may be of the early history of the works, and to throw together the scraps I have collected, into the form of a narrative, which may become the nucleus of a larger and more extended history, as fresh facts are brought to light in the course of my own investigations or of those of others interested in the matter.

It is better to state at the outset that the history of the Chelsea[169] China Works is very obscure. In fact, a London fog, such as is proverbial in the month in which I write (November), seems to have closed around, and enveloped the place in such a dense mass as to make it next to invisible. A little of this cloud of mist I have already removed, and I trust that in the course of future researches I may be able to almost entirely dispel it. At all events, every item of information is valuable, and in the following narrative a vast deal of new matter will be found, which will materially assist the collector in understanding the history of these, the most celebrated of any of the old china manufactories of the United Kingdom.

The south-western district of London, on both sides of the water, has, as I have already shown, for a long period, been the seat of fictile manufactories of an extensive and important character. Fulham, Chelsea, Battersea, Vauxhall, Pedler’s Acre, Lambeth—all had their potteries at an early date, and all, probably, had their origin from one common source. What that first source was—i.e., where the first pottery was founded—is, of course difficult to say, but from it others sprung up, in different directions, until quite a nest of manufactories was located in the suburban districts. The artisans of the seventeenth century were chiefly Dutchmen; indeed, the manufacture was of that kind of ware known as “Delft-ware”—originally made in Holland, and introduced into England by workmen from thence. The importation of “Delft-ware” in this (seventeenth) century was considerable, and at that period the manufacture of a kind of porcelain is said to have been achieved at Delft.

I have shown on another page that large quantities of ware were imported into England from Holland in the seventeenth century, and that Dutch workmen of skill and enterprise were induced, from the prospect of a good home trade here, to settle in England. These workmen, it is not too much to believe, were acquainted with the art of manufacturing porcelain as produced in Delft, as well as the ordinary kind of ware made in their native country; and thus the knowledge was brought into our kingdom, and carried on, to some little extent, by those who settled here. The first maker of china, as I have shown in my account of the Fulham Works, was Mr. Dwight, and to him I am inclined to award the honour of being the father of the Chelsea China Works, about whose origin so little is known. The probability is that after Dwight had succeeded in making porcelain, and abandoned it, some other potter started the works at Chelsea, and with good result.

[170]

When first commenced they were, of course, of a very small size, and were, it is said, principally confined to painting and finishing Oriental china, which was imported for that purpose. There is a tradition—but only tradition—that the origin of the Chelsea works took its rise from the fact of clay being brought as ballast in vessels from Chinese ports, which was found to be the veritable clay used by the Oriental potters. This clay is said to have been used both at Chelsea and at Bow, and to have enabled the workmen successfully to compete with their Eastern rivals. The tradition, however, goes on to recount that the Chinese, finding that the uses of this clay had been discovered, and perceiving that they were losing trade in consequence, wisely “stopped the supplies,” and peremptorily refused to allow any more to leave their ports. The workmen were then driven to seek elsewhere for material, and, as a matter of course, soon found enough to use in our country.

By whom the works were carried on in their early days is not recorded, but in the year 1745 the art had evidently attained a high continental as well as home celebrity. In this year the French company, in their petition for the exclusive privilege of establishing a porcelain manufactory at Vincennes, urged the benefit which France might be expected to derive by having a manufactory of porcelain which should counteract the reputation of English and German make, and stop their importation into France. There is nothing to show that Chelsea, any more than Bow, was intended by this; but as ten years later, according to Rouquet, “that of Chelsea is the most considerable” of the three or four china manufactories in the neighbourhood of London, it is probable it was then one of the seats of manufacture of which France was jealous.

George II. gave the Chelsea establishment his countenance and earnest support, and did much to encourage its works, and to ensure its success. He procured for it workmen, models, and materials from the State of Saxony, and thus enabled the factory to produce works of such high merit as to successfully rival the productions of Sèvres and Dresden. This royal patronage of course produced its results, in procuring the patronage of many of the leading men of the day. Thus, the Duke of Cumberland not only took it under his special care, but allowed a sum of money annually for its furtherance and support. In 1750 it belonged to M. Nicholas Spremont, or Sprimont, a foreigner of considerable taste and talent, who did much towards establishing its already acquired reputation. At this time[171] the productions of the establishment must have been of a particularly high order. In Watkins’s “Life of Queen Charlotte,” it is stated that “there are several rooms in Buckingham Palace full of curiosities and valuable movables, but not ranged in proper order. Among other things I beheld with admiration a complete service of Chelsea china, rich and beautiful in fancy beyond expression. I really never saw any Dresden near so fine. Her Majesty made a present of this choice collection to the duke, her brother—a present worthy of so great a prince.” Horace Walpole, too, in 1763, wrote, “I saw yesterday (March 3, 1763) a magnificent service of Chelsea china, which the king and queen are sending to the Duke of Mecklenberg. There are dishes and plates without number, an epergne, candlestick, salt-cellars, sauce-boats, tea and coffee equipages, &c. In short it is complete, and cost £1,200.”

In the Lansdowne MSS.[57] in the British Museum is a curious document relating to the Chelsea works, which, being particularly interesting, I here give in full. It is entitled “The case of the Undertaker of the Chelsea manufacture of Porcelain Ware.”

Who the “undertaker” of the works here referred to was, is not stated in the document, which, according to Mr. Franks, bears internal evidence of having been written after 1752 and before 1759. Whether the Customs acceded to his views or not does not appear; but certain it is that, despite the abuse of import privilege enjoyed[173] by cabinet ministers and others, he was, by his own showing, carrying on a very extensive business, selling £3,500 worth of goods in one winter, and employing more than a hundred hands, including a nursery of about thirty lads, who were learning the arts of potting and painting.

In 1754 the following advertisement, which is most important as showing the class of goods then made at Chelsea, appeared in the Public Advertiser of December 17th:—

In Mr. Franks’s possession, and in other collections, examples of these “toys” are preserved. Mr. Franks has a smelling-bottle in form of a group, being a boy seated and writing a letter, while a girl looks on: the letter is inscribed, “Fe: 1759, This is.” In that year a Mr. Hughes, an ironmonger in Pall Mall, in his advertisement of May 2nd—

After much research I find that Mr. Spremont continued the works until 1768 or 1769, when he retired, principally through ill health,[58] after having amassed a comfortable fortune; his ledgers dating from 1759 to 1768. During the time of his carrying on the establishment the works were very flourishing—indeed, it was said that “the china was in such repute as to be sold by auction; and as[174] a set was purchased as soon as baked, dealers were surrounding the doors for that purpose.”

Mr. Spremont’s managing man was Francis Thomas, of whom I shall have a few words to say presently. When Spremont retired from the concern, it was purchased by, or assigned over to, Mr. James Cox, who engaged Francis Thomas as overseer, at a salary of £100 a year, and this arrangement continued to the 6th of January, 1770, when Mr. Thomas died. Shortly afterwards the concern again, and for the last time, changed hands. Mr. Thomas was a man of good ability and of much practical skill, and to his energy in directing the works under Mr. Spremont much of their fame may be traced. He was buried in the south aisle of the parish church of Chelsea, where an inscription to his memory now remains.

I have in my possession a bill from Elizabeth, widow of Francis Thomas, which is somewhat interesting, as refuting the statements which have been made as to the position held by this gentleman, and which I therefore give entire:—

James Cox, Esq., to Eliz. Thomas, Dr.

The following announcements refer to the sales and proposed sales of the manufactory, and its models, plant, &c.:—

In the Gazetteer, or New Daily Advertiser, for May, 1769, is the following advertisement:—

In reference to this last advertisement, Josiah Wedgwood thus wrote to Thomas Bentley:—“The Chelsea moulds, models, &c., are to be sold, but I’ll enclose you the advertisement—there’s an immense amount of fine things;” and about the same date, writing to his clerk, William Cox, he says:—“Pray enquire of Mr. Thomas whether they are determined to sell less than the whole of the models, &c., together: if so I do not think it would suit me to purchase. I should be glad if you could send me any further particulars of the things at Chelsea.”

About this time Dr. Johnson was busying himself in experimentalising in compositions for the manufacture of porcelain, and an interesting account of his progress at Chelsea, as given from the lips of the foreman of the works, is preserved by Faulkener. He says, in his “History of Chelsea:”—

Dr. Johnson certainly took much interest in the manufacture of porcelain, and after the discontinuance of the Chelsea works visited those at Derby. He does not, however, seem to have carried his researches on to any practical result.

In 1769 Mr. William Duesbury, the proprietor of the famous Derby China Works, became the purchaser of the Chelsea works, and for many years carried on the two establishments conjointly. The Derby works had at that time attained to a high degree of excellence and of celebrity, and Mr. Duesbury (who became the purchaser, not only of the Chelsea works, but those of Bow, Giles’s, Pedlar’s Acre, &c.) was doing more trade than was done at any other establishment in the kingdom. He had opened an extensive connection with London, and was rapidly increasing his concern, both in that and other markets, and had become more than a successful rivaller of the excellence of the Chelsea wares.

The purchase of the Chelsea works was arranged on the 17th of August, 1769, and completed on the 5th of February, 1770, when a payment of £400, in part of the purchase money, was made. The original document, now in my possession, is highly interesting, and is as follows:—

Thus the Chelsea works, which had been taken to by Mr. Duesbury in August, 1769, and had been, indeed, carried on at his cost from about that period, finally passed into his hands on the 8th of February, 1770. The purchase included not only the “Porcelain[177] manufactory and its appurtenances and the lease thereof,” but the stock of finished and unfinished goods then on the premises; and this gave rise to a long and tedious lawsuit, of which I shall have to speak hereafter. Mr. Duesbury also, it would appear, covenanted to pay all liabilities on the estate, and of course to receive all moneys due to it. At the foot of the bill from Mrs. Thomas to Mr. Cox, printed above, there is this very significant foot-note:—“Mr. Cox sold Mr. Deusbury the whole, who was to pay the above, and every other matter.” Other bills, in my possession, including one from William Payne, the carpenter, for £19 15s. 5d., for repairs done at the works for Mr. Cox, are endorsed as paid by Mr. Duesbury. In this carpenters bill one item shows that the works were palisadoed:—“Dec. 9, 1769. To repairing the yard gates and palisades, setting on locks, 9s. 6d.” The accounts do not appear to have been quite cleared up until the year 1780, when, upon the winding up of the affairs of Mr. Cox, on his failure or death, a claim was made on Mr. Duesbury by the solicitor, Mr. Jasper Jay, for balance of account as then “standing open in the books of Mr. Cox.” The account is but short; but as all this is useful material towards the history of the Chelsea works, and is therefore of importance, I give it entire.

Messrs. Wm. Deusbury & Co.,

Dr. to the Estate of James Cox.

The lawsuit to which I have alluded was commenced the same year that the works finally passed into the hands of Mr. Duesbury, and was brought by that gentleman against Burnsall (I presume the auctioneer named above), to recover a quantity of goods said to have been unlawfully sold to him by Francis Thomas, and which in reality belonged to Duesbury, as a part of his purchase. The goods, which appear to have been made by Spremont, and of his own materials, were alleged by Thomas to have been sold to him[178] by Spremont; but although the books of the concern were kept by Thomas himself, no entry of such sale and purchase was to be found. There were also cross actions. The action was first heard in Michaelmas Term, 1770, and lasted until Hilary Term, 1772. Evidence was given that the articles demanded of Burnsall were made of Mr. Spremont’s materials, and at his manufactory; that Mr. Spremont never sold them to Thomas, and that they were found in rooms lately belonging to the factory, and were therefore included in Mr. Duesbury’s purchase by the formal words. Mr. Spremont, whose health had been gradually failing, died while the action was going on, in June, 1771, and in the end the defendant Burnsall’s counsel, representing to the court “Mrs. Thomas’s situation in a madhouse, and four small children, and the attorney swearing that there was nothing else for to support them, the court would not let us keep the action at law any longer in court, so we must pay the costs.” The action thus came to an end, and Burnsall immediately announced a sale of china, “in which are some capital pieces of Chelsea porcelain”—a part, doubtless, of the disputed goods.

Under Mr. Duesbury, the manager of the Chelsea works, was Richard Barton (a modeller and general workman); and the “weekly bills” of wages and disbursements, now in my possession, as made out by him, are highly interesting and valuable, as showing the kind of articles then made at Chelsea, the names of the workmen and painters, and the amounts earned by each from week to week. These bills commence in March, 1770, and run over the next three or more years. The final destruction of the works is carefully described in some excellent letters, also in my possession, to which I shall refer later on.

From these “weekly bills” I have selected some items which are of more than passing interest, and which tend, more materially than other information can, to throw light on the Chelsea works at this particular period—a period, it must be borne in mind, later than that at which the works are generally said to have been discontinued. It must be remembered that, until my account of the “Derby China Works” appeared in the columns of the Art-Journal, in 1862, nothing had ever been known of the connection of Duesbury with the concern. The information I there gave of his purchase of the Chelsea factory was new; and upon what I then wrote every later account of the Chelsea works has been founded. The works were till then generally believed to have been discontinued in 1765,[179] but I have been enabled to show that they were not finally given up until 1784, when the kilns were taken down.

In June, 1776, her Majesty Queen Charlotte paid a visit to Duesbury’s London Show Rooms in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and was shown through by his agent, Mr. Wood. The following is an account of the event:—

The “weekly bills” of the Chelsea China Works, in my own possession, are very carefully prepared, and give the names and salaries of the workmen employed, as well as the kinds of goods they were engaged in making. They are thus particularly interesting and important, and are calculated to throw no little light on the history of the works. I quote two weeks in full, May 12th to 19th, 1770; and March 16th to 23rd, 1771, as examples of the style of these “weekly bills;” and I have added to these some few extracts, to show the kind of ware then being made, and the prices which the workmen received for painting, &c.

1770. A Weekly Bill at Chelsea from May the 12 to the 19.

Recd. of Mr. Duesbury in full of all Demands for Self and the a Bove.

Richd. Barton.

Work done this Week (May 12 to 19, 1770) at Chelsea, by Barton, Boyer, &cc.

[180]

1771. A Weekly Bill at Chelsea from March the 16 to the 23.

Recd. of Mr. Duesbury in full of all Demands for Self and the a Bove.

Richd. Barton.

From these “weekly bills,” of different dates from 1770 to 1773, I make the following extracts for the purpose of showing collectors the period to which they may safely attribute the manufacture of such specimens as may be in their possession. The extracts are from the “overtime” made by the hands, and are taken hap-hazard, and without any attempt whatever at classification.

I give entire some few other of the weekly statements of “Work Don at Chelsea by Barton, Boyer, &c.,” the painters, Boreman, Wollams, Snowden, and Jinks, not being included.

1770. April 7 to 14. Work Don at Chelsea by Barton & Boyer.

1770. June 16 to 23.

July 7 to 14.

July 21 to 28.

August 11 to 18.

1770. Augt. 25 to Sep. 1.

[183]

In the “weekly bill” on the same paper are the following entries relating to the “bust.” It would be highly interesting to know what bust is meant.

Sep. 8 to 15.

Sep. 22 to 29.

1770. Sep. 15 to 22. Work Don this Week by Barton, Boyer, &cc.

From these weekly lists of “work don by Barton, Boyer,” and others, I add, for the same purpose, the following highly interesting extracts:—

[184]

Mr. Duesbury continued working the manufactory at Chelsea, together with his large and important works at Derby, until the year 1784, when he pulled down the buildings, removed all that was useful to Derby, and so totally put an end to the manufacture of “Chelsea China.” For some years he had been gradually drafting off the workmen, models, &c., to Derby, and in the end finally gave up the manufacture at Chelsea, and continued his works, entire, at their original place, Derby.

It has been said, and generally believed, that the excellence of the Derby works dates from the time when the Chelsea workmen and the Chelsea models were brought to it; but this is, undoubtedly, a great and a grave error. The truth is, the Derby works had risen to such extreme eminence, and had attained to so high a degree of excellence, as to more than rival Chelsea, which, in consequence, began to decline. The successful owner of the Derby establishment was thus enabled to purchase the Chelsea works, as he also did those of Bow, and to carry them on, as long as he considered advisable, conjointly.

I am enabled to give copies of two letters now in my possession, describing the taking down of the buildings, the removal of some of the kilns to Derby, and the arrangement made with the old and faithful workman, Robert Boyer, whose name appears so regularly on the “weekly bills.” The letters are much decayed and mutilated, but fortunately are decipherable. They will be read with much gratification by all who take an interest in the history of Chelsea and its China works.