Both the petuntse and the ‘Caulin’ were first identified by Cookworthy at Tregonnin Hill (between Marazion and Helston)—this was about 1750. The nature and mode of occurrence of both the growan or moor-stone and of the growan clay, to use the local names, are admirably described by him. Soon after this he found the two materials at St. Stephen’s, between Truro and St. Austell, in the centre of what is now the great china-clay district of Cornwall.
There must have been many experiments with the new materials, and many failures, before the year 1768, when Cookworthy took out his patent, and with the pecuniary assistance of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (later Lord Camelford) started his factory at Plymouth. It is doubtful whether this factory was in existence for more than two years. In any case there is evidence that already, by the year 1770, the ‘Plymouth New Invented Porcelain Manufactory’ was at work at Bristol.
We have proof, too, that before this time Richard Champion and others had been working in the latter town with the new Cornish materials. Champion had been asked by Lord Hyndford to make a report upon some kaolin sent to him from South Carolina. In his reply he says: ‘I had it tried at a manufactory set up some time ago on the principle of the Chinese porcelain, but not being successful, is given up.... The proprietors of the works in Bristol imagined they had discovered in Cornwall all the materials similar to the Chinese; but though they burnt the body part tolerably well, yet there were impurities in the glaze or stone which were insurmountable even in the greatest fire they could give it, and which was equal to the Glasshouse heat.... I have sent some [i.e. of the Carolina clay] to Worcester, but this and all the English porcelains being composed of frits, there is no probability of success.’ This is written in February 1766, before the date of Cookworthy’s patent.[247]
Meantime, in France, two men of some scientific pretensions, both of them members of the Académie des Sciences, Lauraguais[248] and D’Arcet, had discovered the kaolin deposits near Alençon. Lauraguais had soon after 1760 succeeded in making some kind of porcelain with the materials he had found. He was, however, forestalled by Guettard, a rival chemist in the service of the Duke of Orleans, who in November 1765 read a paper before the Académie on the kaolin and petuntse of Alençon. Lauraguais, in disgust, after a violent rejoinder, came over to England.
In a curious letter dated April 1766, Dr. Darwin, writing to Wedgwood, says: ‘Count Laragaut has been at Birmingham & offer’d ye Secret of making ye finest old China as cheap as your Pots. He says ye materials are in England. That ye secret has cost £16,000—ytHe will sell it for £2000—He is a Man of Science, dislikes his own Country, was six months in ye Bastile for speaking against ye Government—loves every thing English’; but, adds Darwin, ‘I suspect his Scientific Passion is stronger than perfect Sanity’ (Miss Meteyard, Life of Wedgwood, vol. i. p. 436). Lauraguais, in 1766, proposed to take out a patent for making not only the coarser species of china, but ‘the more beautiful ware of the Indies and the finest of Japan.’ The specification was never enrolled, and nothing came of it. There exist, however, a few specimens of china marked with the letters B. L. (Brancas Lauraguais) in a flowing hand, which are attributed to the Count.[249] The paste, says Professor Church, is fine, hard, and of good colour. An analysis gives 58 per cent. of silica, 36 per cent. of alumina, and 6 per cent. of other bases. It will be observed that the percentage of alumina in this porcelain is exceptionally high.
We see, therefore, that before the year 1770, when Cookworthy removed to Bristol, true porcelain had been made in more than one place in England, but not with enough success to allow the new ware to compete with the soft pastes of Worcester and elsewhere. So in France, although the new paste was introduced at Sèvres in 1769, it was only in 1774, so Brongniart tells us, that the manufacture of hard porcelain was firmly established.
Champion seems to have been on friendly terms with Cookworthy, and in 1773 he bought from the latter the entire patent rights. In the two previous years much of the new porcelain had been made. It is claimed for it in advertisements that, unlike the English china generally, it will wear as well as the East Indian, and that the enamelled porcelain, though nearly as cheap as the English blue and white, ‘comes very near, and in some pieces equals, the Dresden, which this work more particularly imitates.’ This is from a local journal of November 1772, and we may add that not only the ware was imitated, but also the well-known marks of Dresden.[250]
Now, if we turn from these general considerations to examine the nature of the West of England ware, we find some difficulty in drawing a line between the early, partly experimental, porcelain made at Plymouth and the later, more successful, products of the Bristol kilns. Nor will the mark, the alchemist’s sign for Jupiter[251] ([Pl. e]. 83), first used on the Plymouth porcelain, help us much, for the same mark was certainly used to some extent after Cookworthy’s migration to Bristol.
To Plymouth we must attribute the plain white ware with a glaze of dull hue, disfigured by dark lines where the glaze lies thick in the interstices. Cookworthy, we know, attempted to make his glaze from the Cornish stone without the addition of any other substances.[252] In other cases he followed the recipe given by the Père D’Entrecolles, and gave greater fusibility to the growan-stone by adding a small quantity of a frit made from a mixture of lime and fern ashes. Cookworthy even ventured to follow the Chinese plan, and applied the glaze to the raw