We cannot leave this cream ware question without referring to an old legal controversy. This brings us down to the year 1775 when Wedgwood, in company with John Turner (of Lane End) journeyed to Cornwall and jointly leased some clay mines. The reason for their visit was that the whole of the Staffordshire potters were up in arms. Salt glaze was coming to an end in spite of the enamelling in colours in emulation of English porcelain. And now Cookworthy, the potter of Plymouth, the maker of the first hard porcelain in England, had sold his patent rights to Champion of Bristol, who, in 1775, applied for a further patent for fourteen years to use certain natural materials for making porcelain. The Staffordshire potters elected Josiah Wedgwood and John Turner as their representatives and petitioned against the granting of this patent, and Wedgwood urged that
"the manufacture of earthenware in Staffordshire has of late received many essential improvements, and is continually advancing to higher degrees of perfection; that the further improvement of the manufactory must depend upon the application and the free use of the various raw materials that are the natural products of this country."
He further adds that "the natural productions of the soil ought to be the right of all."
Incidentally, this controversy throws light on the position of Wedgwood as a maker of cream ware, and it had a lasting effect, as we shall show in the improvement of cream ware itself and upon the class of ware turned out in Staffordshire.
Champion, in his reply to the Staffordshire outburst in petitioning parliament not to grant his patent, pays Wedgwood a great compliment:
"Mr. Champion most cheerfully joins in the general praise which is given to Mr. Wedgwood for the many improvements which he has made in the Staffordshire earthenware, and the great pains and assiduity with which he has pursued them. He richly deserves the large fortune he has made from these improvements."
Champion goes on to make a most vital point in upholding his claim to protection that he
"has no objection to the use which the potters of Staffordshire may make of his or any other raw materials provided earthenware only, as distinguished by that title, is made from it."
Here, then, is the reason of the visit of Wedgwood and Turner to the West, in search of the natural earths that half the potters in Europe had been hunting for since Böttcher, of Dresden, made his great discovery of white clay.
But the story of cream ware is not ended. Wedgwood to this printed "Reply" by Champion entered the lists with some printed "Remarks," which he circulated to members of parliament. In this—and we must bear in mind that he was holding a brief on behalf of all the Staffordshire potters—we find the following statement:—