Caughley.
The Worcester porcelain works, as I have shown, were established in the year 1751; and the commencement of those in Shropshire must have been, if not coeval, at all events closely subsequent to that event. Indeed, the two works may be almost said to have sprung into existence at the same time. The site of the first Salopian china works was at Caughley, about a mile from the present manufactory, and on the opposite or south side of the river Severn. The works were situated on the hill overlooking the valley of the Severn, as it flowed on to Bridgnorth, and commanding a magnificent view of the surrounding country. On this spot, it is said, a small pottery was begun by a Mr. Browne, of Caughley Hall, and after his death managed by a gentleman named Gallimore, who was a relative, to whom, in 1754, a lease of the place was granted for the term of sixty-two years. This Mr. Gallimore does not appear to have been long connected with the works; for the only name, as proprietor, which I have at present been able to establish, is that of Mr. Thomas Turner, who married Dorothy, daughter of Mr. Gallimore and niece to Mr. Browne, and carried on the manufactory.
Mr. Thomas Turner was the son of Dr. Richard Turner, of Magdalene Hall, Oxford, rector of Cumberton, vicar of Elmly Castle and Norton, all in Worcestershire, in 1754, and who was also chaplain to the Countess of Wigtoun. This Dr. Turner, who took his degree at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, was the author of several works on astronomy, gauging, trigonometry, education, history, &c., and, in 1765, was a “teacher of geometry, astronomy, and philosophy” at Worcester. He died in 1791, and was buried at Norton-juxta-Kempsey, near Worcester. Besides his son Thomas, he had two other sons, Richard, LL.D., and Edward, the first of whom also published some works on geography, &c., and the latter was a general in the army in India, where he died; and two daughters, Elizabeth, married to Abraham Wyke, of Broseley, surgeon, and Sarah, married to Dr. William Hancock Roberts, rector of Broadwas and minor canon of Worcester Cathedral. Mr. Thomas Turner, by his first wife, Dorothy Gallimore, who died in 1793, had issue two children who died in infancy; and by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas Milner, of Dothill, and widow of Henry Alsop, had issue one son, George Thomas Turner, of High Broughton, near Manchester, who died at Scarborough March 17, 1869, without issue, and one daughter, Catherine Georgiana Cecilia, who married John Jacob Smith, of St. James’s Priory, Bridgnorth, for more than half a century town clerk of that borough, by whom he had issue the present Hubert Smith, Esq., of St. Leonards, Bridgnorth, the gifted author of “Tent Life with English Gipsies in Norway,” who is the lineal and only representative of the main line of the Turner family. Mr. Turner was born in 1749, and is said to have been brought up as a silversmith at Worcester; but this is an error, as, for the purpose of obtaining the freedom of the city, he was, as a matter of legal form only, apprenticed to his father. It seems pretty certain that he was, at an early period, connected with the Worcester china works, and it is an established fact that he was an excellent chemist, and had thoroughly studied the various processes relating to porcelain manufacture. He was also a skilful draftsman and designer, and occasionally engraved: he was also a clever musician. He became a county magistrate for Shropshire, and was a freeman of the city of Worcester and the boroughs of Wenlock and Bridgnorth. He was also chairman of the Court of Equity for the three counties, which he had been mainly instrumental in establishing. In 1772, he succeeded his father-in-law, Mr. Gallimore, at the Caughley works (Mr. Gallimore having leased them from Mr. Browne in 1754), and carried them on until 1799, when he sold out all interest in the works and retired from business. He died at his residence at Caughley in 1809, aged sixty, and was buried in the family vault at Barrow, where, later, his daughter, Mrs. Smith, was also buried. After his death the commissioners of Oldbury Court presented his widow with a memorial silver cup of large size, bearing on one side the arms of Turner, and on the other an appropriate inscription. This is in possession of his representative, Mr. Hubert Smith.
Mr. Turner had a partner named Shaw. They had a warehouse in London, and, as was usual in those days with other works, had periodical sales by auction of their goods. In my own possession is a bill of this firm, dated January 24th, 1794, and headed “Salopian China Warehouse. Bought of Turner and Shaw.” The lots in this bill were bought “at public sale,” and consisted of “jugs,” “bakings,” “china dishes,” and other “sundry pieces;” the lots were “put up at half price” at the sale. In 1795, Mr. Turner’s manager at Caughley was one Thomas Blase; and I have a letter of his, dated 20th February in that year, concerning a painter, named Withers, at that time employed there, but who had wrongfully left his employment at the Derby china works, where he was “Mr. Deusbury’s articled servant.”
No doubt the incentive to the establishment of the Caughley works were the experiments long carried on at Worcester by Dr. Wall, and the knowledge that at this spot the two principal materials wanting in a pottery of this kind could be had at a trifling cost. With abundance of coal within twenty feet of the surface, with clunch of the best quality for the making of seggars overlying the coal, and with the navigable river at hand for bringing the materials and for carrying away the finished goods, the inducements were strong for the fixing on this spot the manufactory which was destined ultimately to grow into such enviable importance. To Worcester, of course, coal and clunch and other materials had to be conveyed at great cost; but here they were ready to hand, and indeed were cropping out in every direction, inviting to be used. In 1756 the works had attained a considerable degree of excellence; and an example is in existence, bearing that date, which gives most satisfactory evidence of the excellence of the body at that time—a body, however, which speedily became greatly improved. In the early years of the Caughley manufactory, the ware was not many degrees removed from earthenware; but it gradually assumed a finer and more transparent character. Like the early Worcester examples, the patterns were principally confined to blue flowers, &c., on a white ground; and in this style and colour the Caughley works excelled, in many respects, their competitors. An excellent example of the body, as made in 1776, is exhibited in a mug, bearing that date, now in the possession of a family at Coalport. This interesting mug, here engraved, is white, with blue and gold flowers, and bears the words “Francis Benbow, 1776,” surmounted by an anchor; the Francis Benbow, for whom it was made, being a barge-owner.
Fig. 584.
Fig. 585.—Arms of Turner.
In 1772, as I have shown, Mr. Turner succeeded Mr. Gallimore in these works, and set about enlarging them. In 1775 we read, “The porcelain manufactory erected near Bridgnorth, in this county, is now quite completed, and the proprietors have received and completed orders to a very large amount. Lately we saw some of their productions, which in colour and fineness are truly elegant and beautiful, and have the bright and lively white of the so much extolled oriental.” In 1780 he visited France, for the purpose of “picking up knowledge” on the porcelain manufactures of Paris and other places. He is said to have been an excellent draughtsman, and this added to his chemical knowledge—for he had a regular laboratory fitted up at the top of his house—must have been a great advantage to him while in that country of beautiful and chaste designs. On his return from France he brought with him some skilled workmen, and at once entered with increased spirit into the manufacture of porcelain in his own works at Caughley. One of the men whom he had brought over appears to have been a clever architect; and from his design a very tasty and elegant château, which he called “Caughley Place,” and where he resided, was built for Mr. Turner, near the works. This building being of a novel design in England—more especially in the sequestered neighbourhood of Caughley—attracted much attention; and its peculiarities of construction and arrangement are still often talked about by the old inhabitants of the place. This house and Caughley Hall, after Mr. Turner’s death, came into the hands of Lord Forester, and were pulled down in 1820 or 1821; part of the materials being used for making additions to the present works at Coalport. At the present time no vestiges of the house or works remain at Caughley, with the exception of traces of foundations, and here and there a spring flower or two which still make their appearance where once the elegantly laid out gardens existed.
In 1780 Mr. Turner introduced the making of the famous “Willow Pattern”—the first made in England—at Caughley, and about the same time the “Broseley Blue Dragon” pattern. The willow pattern is still commonly known in the trade as “Broseley pattern.”
Fig. 586.
An excellent example of dated Caughley ware is the puzzle-jug in the possession of Mr. Edmund Thursfield, here engraved. It is eight inches in length, and is formed of the usual body of these works. It is decorated with blue sprigs, and bears on its front the name, in an oval border, of “John Geary Cleak of the old Church Brosley 1789.” On the bottom is written in blue, “Mathew the v & 16,” though one would fail to see any allusion in the text here referred to either to the vessel or to its purpose. In Mr. Smith’s possession is a fine Caughley mug; white, with blue flowers of bold character: it bears the words, “Wm. Haslewood, 1791,” and has the mark S on the bottom. This William Haslewood was the representative of an old family of that name in this neighbourhood, and his property passed to the Mr. J. J. Smith already spoken of.
In 1788 Mr. Robert Chamberlain commenced his china works at Worcester, and for some time bought his ware at Caughley, had it sent down by barge to Worcester, and there painted and finished it. The same thing was also done when Grainger’s works were first started at Worcester. The number of hands employed at Caughley must have been somewhat large, as the premises were extensive, and the quantity of goods required by Mr. Turner, for his own trade and for Worcester, was considerable. In 1798 or 1799, in consequence of the increase of the trade of Mr. Rose, who had been apprenticed to Mr. Turner, and afterwards commenced on his own account, by which the Caughley business was much injured, the works were disposed of to Mr. Rose and his partner; Mr. Turner entirely retiring from the concern. The Caughley works were then carried on by Messrs. Rose and Co., in conjunction with their own. The coal at Caughley beginning to work out, and the cost of carrying the unfinished ware from thence down the hill and across the water to Coalport was so great,—the unfinished ware being carried on women’s heads the whole distance,—that Mr. Rose determined to remove the works to Coalport, which he did at different times, gradually drafting off the workmen, until about 1814 or 1815, when they were finally removed, the kilns and rooms taken down, and the materials used for the enlargement of the works at Coalport. The last of the buildings, with the house, were not, however, destroyed until 1821, when the materials were brought to Coalport to build the present burnishing-shops and some workmen’s cottages.
Fig. 587.—The Caughley China Works, taken down in 1815.
The works were built in form of a quadrangle, with an entrance gateway surmounted by an inscribed stone. Of these historical works I am enabled, through the courtesy of my friend Mr. Hubert Smith, to give an engraving from an original drawing in his possession. The entrance building, it will be seen, was three stories in height, the remainder two stories, and the kilns were of large size.
The marks used at Caughley and Coalport have been very few, but they are very important, and require careful attention at the hands of the collector. In my account of the Worcester works I have given several varieties of the crescent as a mark of that establishment, and have also stated that it was used at Caughley. I believe the first mark used at Caughley to have been the crescent alone, and that it was, as I have before stated, intended to have the signification of a C for Caughley, and that its connection with the Worcester works may, in a great measure, be traced to the fact of the goods on which it appears being printed, not at that city, but at Caughley. I have seen examples of this mark on undoubted Worcester body, and also on equally undoubted Caughley make, bearing precisely the same printed patterns. The following are some of the varieties of the crescent occurring on Caughley specimens, and show pretty clearly its transition from a common “half-moon” (I have often heard it called “half-moon china”) to the finished and engraved C.
C C’ C C c
Figs. 588 to 592.
Another mark said to have been used at Caughley, but of which at present I have met with no example, is the accompanying,
which is very similar to the mark ascribed to the Leeds manufactory.
Another distinctive mark of the Salopian works was the capital letter S, of which the following are varieties:—
S S Sx Sx So S S
Figs. 594 to 600.
When the S was introduced it is difficult to say; but, at all events, it appears on the dated example alluded to above in 1776, and it was used at the same time as the C for a considerable period. On many of the engraved plates still in existence, indeed, both the C and the S occur, and this leads me to suspect that the one was used to mark the goods sent to Caughley to be printed, and the other those made and printed for their own market. I have seen precisely similar articles in pattern, bearing each of these letters. Occasionally the S and crossed daggers occur.
Vol. I.
Plate III.
ORIGINAL COPPER-PLATES—CAUGHLEY AND COALPORT.
(The letters C and S are the marks alluded to on page [270]; they here occur side by side on the original copper-plate.)
Another circumstance is also worthy of note. On two mugs printed from the same engraved plate, which I have seen, the one bears the S, and the other the accompanying curious mark (Fig. [598]), which is evidently of the same character as the examples of assimilated Chinese ones, which are occasionally ascribed to Worcester, but which are in reality, I believe, those of Caughley. Of these I give the following as examples; many of these are disguised figures.
Figs. 601 to 606.
Following the C and S, two impressed marks, bearing the word “Salopian,” were used. These are as follows:—
Figs. 607 and 608.
and it is worthy of remark that, on some examples of plates bearing this impressed mark, the blue printed S also appears; as, on others, does also the crescent. Others, probably merely workmen’s marks, are
The subject of printing upon porcelain, to which I have already alluded under “Worcester,” is one so intimately and intricately connected with the Caughley and Coalport works, that it will be necessary to consider the period of its introduction at some length. I have already shown that transfer-printing was used as early as 1757 on Worcester porcelain (p. 229, ante); and I have little doubt that quite as early, if not a few years before that period, it was practised at Caughley. Indeed, in the early years of the manufactory, the two works, Caughley and Worcester, seem to have been closely connected, and to have worked “in and in,” if I may be allowed the use of so unscientific an expression, and I believe, with ample reason, that a great proportion of the printed goods bearing the Worcester mark were printed at Caughley. Indeed, it is known that the ware was sent up from Worcester by barge to be printed at Caughley, and returned, when finished, by the same mode of conveyance. I have closely examined the style of engraving and the patterns of a large number of examples, and I am clearly of opinion that they are the work of the same hands.
I do not, by this, claim for Caughley the honour of inventing the art of transfer-printing on to porcelain; but I feel assured that that art must have been there practised at quite as early a period as the dated example of Worcester make; and I am led to this belief partly from the fact that the Robert Hancock whose beautiful productions I have before spoken of, and to whom the engraving of the dated example is ascribed, also engraved for the Caughley works. And I have an impression of a plate, of an identical pattern with the famous tea group, which bears his monogram on the Worcester specimens, on which his name, R. Hancock fecit, occurs in full at Caughley. Collectors, therefore, in a case of this kind, must not be too hasty in ascribing, from appearance alone, examples to either one or the other make, but must be guided, in a great measure, by the body on which the engraving occurs.
It cannot be wondered that an art, then such an important secret, should have been followed at Caughley,—a place so perfectly retired from the world, situated in the midst of woods and wilds, almost unapproachable to strangers, and with every facility for keeping the workmen away from all chance of imparting the secret to others,—in place of in Worcester, where secrecy would be almost impossible, and where the information would ooze out from the workmen, at the ale-house or elsewhere, and be greedily caught up by those interested in the process. At Caughley every possible precaution seems to have been taken to secure secrecy; and the workmen—the engravers and printers—were locked up and kept apart from every one else. Who the engravers were I cannot satisfactorily say. It is, however, certain, that Hancock engraved for the works; and it is said that Holdship, of whom I have before spoken, was also employed. Among the other engravers was a man named Dyas, who was apprenticed as an engraver at Caughley about the year 1768, and who continued at the works until his death, at the ripe age of eighty-two. It is also worthy of note that Mr. Minton, the father of Mr. Herbert Minton, was in his early days employed as an engraver at these works. It is not too much to say, that the style of engraving adopted at so early a period was remarkably good, and of really high character. Indeed, some specimens which I have seen of the plates used at Caughley are far superior to most of the productions of the period.
Vol. I
Plate IV.
ORIGINAL COPPER-PLATES—CAUGHLEY AND COALPORT.
Of the painters employed at Caughley, it will be sufficient to say that amongst those apprenticed there were John Parker, Thomas Fennell, and Henry Boden, famous for their skill in flowers; and that Muss, Silk, and others, excelled in landscapes and figures—some sepia landscapes being remarkable for their pure artistic treatment; while among the gilders, a most important art, and one to which special attention has always been directed at these works, were men of the names of Rutland, Marsh, and Randall who were considered proficients. Of the latter, a nephew, who is the author of pleasant little volumes on the “Severn Valley” and “The Willey Country,” is still employed at the Coalport works, principally on birds.
I have named above that Robert Hancock engraved for Caughley as well as for Worcester, or at all events that plates of his were printed from at the former place possibly for the latter. His name appears on one of the plates as follows:—
and other plates are evidently the work of his hand, though without name. I engraved a curious mark, the monogram RH, anchor, and name of Worcester, in the account of those works. This I reproduce on Fig. [611], and give another which occurs on a plate from Caughley, with the anchor and the word Derby, which I introduce for the purpose of comparison, and to suggest the probability that the place which produced the one with the word Derby (for whatever reason that may have been done), which was undoubtedly Caughley, also produced the one with the word Worcester. The engraved plate, with the anchor and Derby, is a curious one (for a mug), and represents a landscape—a river, with trees on either side, swans sailing in the foreground, behind them two fishermen in a boat drawing a net, beyond them a boat with sails, and in the background a bridge, and church with ruins to the left, and a tall gabled building on the right, over which are the words “Sutton Hall,” whilst above the whole picture is “English Hospitality.”
Figs. 611 and 612.
Fig. 613.—Coalport China Works, from a painting by Muss.