WILLIAM COOKWORTHY, THE INVENTOR OF BRITISH PORCELAIN.
In endeavouring to revive the neglected memory of this good and great man, I have carefully looked over the chief periodicals of his day (1730 to 1780) with very little success; perhaps because those I have at command, the Gentleman's Magazine, Universal Magazine, and Universal Museum, were not those selected for his correspondence.
If any of your readers can refer me to any papers or essays of his, or any details of the internal management of his China works, or of his public or private life, it will be doing me a great favour.
What I have hitherto collected are chiefly fragmentary accounts of his life and character; general notices of his discovery of the China clay and stone, of the progress of his manufactory, and of his treatment of British cobalt ores; details of his experiments on the distillation of sea-water for use on ship-board; a treatise in detail on the divining rod; and several of his private letters, chiefly religious.
Most of these I have thrown out in print, under the title of Relics of William Cookworthy, &c., which I am desirous of making much more complete.
J. Prideaux.