Fig. 452.
The works must have been commenced on a tolerably large scale, and have rapidly risen in importance, for in 1752—only a year after the formation of the company—the premises were very business-like in their arrangement and extensive in their proportions, and were sufficiently important to be engraved in the Gentleman’s Magazine of that year. Of that view the accompanying engraving is a reduced fac-simile, and it will show at once how soon the works had risen to a state of importance. The following explanatory references from the Magazine will make it better understood:—“Explanation. 1. St. Andrew’s. 2. Warmstrey Slip. 3. Biscuit kilns. 4. Glazing kilns. 5. Great kiln for segurs. 6. Pressing and modelling gallery. 7. Rooms for throwing, turning, and stove-drying the ware on the first floor, a, of the chamber floors. 8. The garden. 9. The yard for coals. 10. Mr. Evett’s house and garden, landlord of the premises. b. The eight windows in two large chambers, in which the ware is placed on stallions, on the east and north, where are the painters’ rooms. All the beginning of the process is carried on under the quadrangular building, ground floor, marked A; in its N.W. angle is the great rowl and ring; in the N.E. the horses turn the same, and the levigators near to the rowl. The next (on the ground floor) is the slip and treading-rooms; behind No. 4 is the glazing-room; behind 5 is the secret-room on the ground-floor.”
Accompanying this engraving, which bears the initials “J. D. delin.” (probably John Davis, one of the partners) and “J. C. sculp.” (probably J. Cave), is the following interesting note:—“N.B. A sale of this manufacture will begin at the Worcester music-meeting on Sept. 20, with great variety of ware, and, ’tis said, at a moderate price.”
This was probably the first time the Worcester goods were brought into the public market. The goods were first vended by Mr. Samuel Bradley, one of the partners, at a shop opposite the Guildhall in High Street, and afterwards in larger premises near the Cross.
The characteristic of the early ware was a peculiarly soft greenness of hue in the body, and by this, as well as the general style of ornamentation, and by the marks, Worcester specimens may without difficulty be recognised. The first mark used I believe to have been a simple letter W., but the marks are so various in the early period of the manufacture that it is most difficult, indeed impossible, to arrange them chronologically. Like the D on the Derby porcelain, which might be either the initial of the founder of the works, Duesbury, or that of the town, Derby, the Worcester ware had a W., which might be the initial of its founder, Wall, or of the city, Worcester, itself. The different varieties of the letter W which have come under my notice are the following, and these may certainly all of them be ascribed to an early period. Another distinctive mark of about the same time is the crescent, which is sometimes drawn in outline, sometimes filled in in lines, and sometimes of full blue colour. This mark is supposed to be taken, and perhaps with some probability, from the arms of the Warmstreys, which decorated the rooms used by the workmen. It is worthy of note here, that one of the marks of the Caughley or Coalport porcelain was also a crescent. As these works are said to have been established by Worcester workmen, the use of this mark may be attributed to them, and it may have had the double signification of a crescent and a C for Caughley.
Figs. 453 to 460.
As the Worcester aim was to copy, and emulate in design and material, the ceramic productions of China and Japan,—indeed, there were scarcely any others to copy from at this early period,—so it appears to have been the study of the artists to copy, or to simulate, the marks used on the productions of these foreign manufactories; and thus a great variety of marks are to be met with principally, or, I may say, entirely, drawn in blue. Some of the most characteristic and general of these I here append.
