IX
NANTGARW AND SWANSEA
The history of these two factories in Wales is bound up together. Billingsley, the chief flower-painter of Derby, was the founder of the little factory at Nantgarw, a small village a few miles north of Cardiff.
His was a restless, roving career. In other “Chats” we have alluded to him. Apprenticed at Derby under Duesbury, he left there in 1796, to commence the manufacture of porcelain at Pinxton. In 1801 we find he had left Pinxton and was engaged upon the decoration of Staffordshire porcelain at Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire. He is next described as “of Torksey,” which is near Gainsborough. At Worcester he engaged himself under Messrs. Flight and Barr, and was employed on flower-painting from 1808 to 1811.
Billingsley was known as “Beeley” at this time. Monetary difficulties had compelled him to take precautions against his arrest for debt. About this time, too, together with his son-in-law, Samuel Walker, he appears to have visited the Coalport Factory and erected a new kiln, the invention of Walker.
Of late, a considerable interest has been shown in the porcelain of Nantgarw and Swansea. Collectors have ascribed to it artistic qualities greater than those of Worcester or Derby. The lovers of Nantgarw, and those connoisseurs who collect this and no other porcelain, will not admit that it is in any way inferior to the greatest factories that have existed in this country, and compare it to Sèvres.
Recently at Christie’s Auction Rooms a dessert service of Nantgarw manufacture brought £128 2s. Each piece was painted with a bouquet of flowers in the centre, the borders with raised white scrolls, painted with birds and flowers. This service consisted of centre dish, on feet, four square-shaped dishes, two-leaf shaped dishes, seventeen plates and two small plates. This works out at nearly £4 15s. each piece.
At another London auction room, seven Nantgarw plates, painted with birds and bouquets of flowers in border, all with impressed mark, in December last brought under the hammer, £97, which is nearly £14 each plate! After this it is useless to deny that Nantgarw is a factory which must be reckoned with from a collector’s point of view.
