Vauxhall.
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 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.