In the detached block the raw materials are reduced to a state ready for the workman.
The second block contains the damping places, where the clays are kept in a certain degree of moisture; pressers’ shops for the various colours of geometrical tiles, and the encaustic tile makers’ shops, with their stoves.
The next block provides for the drying and firing of the goods and decorating shops.
On the first floor are workshops employed for painting, printing and enamelling, or other decorative purposes.
The fourth block provides for the sorting and stocking of goods and for packing them for despatch; also the offices and showroom.
Near to the detached block first described a small gas-works has been erected, which supplies the whole of the buildings.
Coalport Porcelain Works.
The first works at Coalport were we believe founded and carried on by William Reynolds, Thomas Rose, Robert Horton, and Robert Anstice; the former William Reynolds, being then Lord of the Manor. The buildings, or a good portion occupied by them are still standing.
Mr. Thomas Rose, and Mr. John Rose, were sons of a respectable farmer living at Sweeney. The latter was a clerk under Mr. Turner, at Caughley, and left him to take the Jackfield works about the year, it is said, 1780. Having carried them on for a few years, in conjunction with Mr. Blakeway, during which time he greatly improved the quality of the article manufactured there, he established the present Coalport works on the side of the canal, then recently opened, and opposite to those of Reynolds, Horton, Thomas Rose, and Robert Anstice. On Mr. Turner retiring from the Caughley works in 1799, Mr. Rose and the new company he had formed purchased them, and by means of increased capital shortly afterwards removed both plant and materials from Caughley and Jackfield to the more advantageous position they now occupy, on the banks of the canal and the Severn. Even the buildings were pulled down and the bricks and timber removed to the opposite side of the Severn, where they were used in constructing the cottages now standing opposite to the present Coalport Works.
A staff of excellent work-people had been obtained from Caughley and Jackfield works combined, but an accident occurred on the night of the 23rd of October in that year by the capsizing of the ferry, as the work-people were crossing the Severn, by which twenty-eight were drowned, some among them being the best hands employed at the works. It was a dark night, the boat was crowded, and the man at the helm, not having been accustomed to put the boat over allowed the vessel to swing round in the channel where, with a strong tide running, it was drawn under by the rope which went from the mast to a rock in the bed of the river. Some managed to scramble out on the Broseley side of the stream; but the following were lost, notwithstanding the efforts of those who rushed to the river side on hearing the despairing cries raised to save them. Jane Burns, Sarah Burns, Ann Burns, Mary Burgess, Elizabeth Fletcher, Mary Fletcher, Elizabeth Beard, Jane Boden, Elizabeth Ward, Sarah Bagnall, Sophia Banks, Mary Miles, Elizabeth Evans, Catherine Lowe, Jane Leigh, Charles Walker, George Lynn, James Farnworth, George Sheat, John Chell, Robert Lowe, William Beard, John Jones, Benjamin Gosnall, Benjamin Wyld, Richard Mountford, Joseph Poole.