Worcester—The Royal Porcelain Works.
There are three things for which the “faithful city” of Worcester, so celebrated in history for its loyalty, is at the present day especially famous. These are its porcelain, its gloves, and its sauce. For who has not drunk out of or seen “Worcester china,” worn “Dent’s gloves,” or tasted “Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce”? These three are things which are identified with its name wherever Worcester is heard of, and, in the minds of some people, take precedence of its glorious cathedral, its tomb of King John, or its exquisitely beautiful shrine of Prince Arthur. With the first of these only I have now to do, and its history is one of great interest, as connected with that of the general porcelain manufacture of the kingdom.
At a time when foreign china was much sought after, when Fulham, Chelsea, Bow, and Derby were gradually working their way into favour, and gaining ground on their foreign rivals in the estimation of people of taste, Worcester was quietly experimentalising in the same direction, and gradually paving the way for the establishment of those works which have since become so great a benefit to it, and so great an honour to the country. Exactly in the middle of the last century these experiments were carried on, and the works were soon afterwards established, and rapidly grew into note. So rapidly, indeed, did the ware made at this manufactory come into repute, that in the year following the opening of the works it was noticed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and in 1763 was alluded to in the “Annual Register.”
Fig. 451.—Portrait of Dr. Wall.
The “faithful city” was indebted for the establishment of its pottery to the exertions and scientific researches of Dr. John Wall, a physician of that city. The learned doctor was born at Powick, a village in Worcestershire, in the year 1708. His father was a tradesman in Worcester, of which city he served the office of mayor in 1703; he was descended from a good family in Herefordshire. Dr. Wall’s father dying while he was young, he was educated at the King’s School, Worcester, and in 1726 became a scholar at Worcester College, Oxford. Nine years later, at the age of twenty-seven, he became a fellow of Merton College. Having studied at Oxford and at St. Thomas’s Hospital, he in 1739 took his degree, and commenced practice in Worcester. He married Catherine Sandys, cousin to the first Lord Sandys. Dr. Wall, besides being a clever practitioner and an excellent chemist, was also an artist of great ability; he painted historical pictures with great judgment, and his conceptions were sometimes marked with considerable originality and grandeur. One of his principal pictures is that of the founder, &c., in the hall of Merton College, Oxford—a painting[72] he presented to that college in 1765. Of his other works, his “Brutus condemning his Sons,” “The Head of Pompey brought to Cæsar” (now at Hagley), “Regulus returning to Carthage,” “Queen Eleanor sucking the Poison from the Arm of Edward I.,” “Elijah fed by the Ravens,” “Moses striking the Rock,” “The School of Physic,” “The Shunamite’s Child restored,” and “The Head of St. John the Baptist,” are among the best. He also etched some remarkably clever plates, and designed the stained-glass window in the bishop’s private chapel at Hartlebury, the “Presentation of Christ in the Temple,” a window at Oriel College, and others. Dr. Wall was also the author of several medical works, and was eminently instrumental in bringing the Malvern waters into public notice. He was also one of the most zealous supporters of the Worcestershire Infirmary.
Dr. Wall, besides his other accomplishments, was, as has already been intimated, an excellent practical chemist; his laboratory was at No. 33, Broad Street. He turned his attention more particularly to experimentalising on materials which might be used for the manufacture of porcelain; and in 1751, about a year after the establishment of the works at Derby, and while those at Chelsea and Bow were being carried on, he brought his experiments to a successful issue; the result being the discovery of a body of surpassing excellence.
It has been said, and there is indeed a traditional belief in the fact, that the mainspring of Dr. Wall’s experiments was a political one, and that he was induced to turn his attention to the subject in the hope of introducing into Worcester a new branch of manufacture, by which “the low party of the county” might be enabled, by the votes it would command, “to stand a competition for members of parliament with the ministerial or popular party.”[73] I cannot, however, for a moment, and, despite all that has been brought forward on the matter, believe that this was the motive power by which Dr. Wall, a man of high intellect and attainments, and of noble character, was impelled to the prosecution of his inquiries; but that for the good of science and of commerce alone, and with a knowledge that a branch of manufacture of the kind, if once well established, must be lucrative to its possessors and advantageous to the city, he was induced to work hard and zealously in his laboratory until he had mastered the difficulties which surrounded him, and had produced a material that should successfully rival the foreign examples which he took for his model. However, be this as it may, in the year 1751 success had so far attended his labours that he formed a company for the manufacture of porcelain in Worcester, and thus laid the foundation of that manufacture which has been carried on with uninterrupted success for a century and quarter.
The “Worcester Porcelain Company,” founded, then, in 1751 by Dr. Wall, consisted of several gentlemen who joined him in his undertaking, and thus formed a “joint-stock company” for the manufacture of the chinaware on the principle he had discovered. The names of these proprietors from 1751 to 1772 were Dr. Wall, Richard Holdship, Rev. Benjamin Blayney, Samuel Bradley, Rev. Samuel Pritchett, Wm. Oliver, David Henry (in place of Richard Holdship), Wm. Davis, John Salway, Germain Lavie, Rev. Thomas Vernon, Mary Blayney, Richard Cook, Henry Cook, and John Thorneloe. The company thus formed commenced its operations in a fine old mansion, formerly the residence of the Warmstrey family, in Warmstrey Slip and Palace Row, nearly adjoining the bishop’s palace; the grounds at the back, at that time beautifully laid out, running down to the banks of the Severn, and commanding a delightful view of the valley, and of the Malvern and Abberley hills beyond.
“The mansion of the Warmstrey family,” says a local writer, in 1837, “is conjectured to have been occupied as far back as the reign of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., by Sir William Windsor, second Lord Windsor, an ancestor of the late Earl of Plymouth. On the first floor of the house is a parlour, wainscoted round with oak, and over the fire-place is a very curious specimen of armorial ensigns, carved in wood, and bearing the marks of great age. They are the arms of Sir William Windsor, second Lord Windsor, the distinguished nobleman just alluded to, and such as are borne by the Earls of Plymouth. The arms are quartered as follows:—