“Maunds[88] are excessively dear, and I have none worse than what is sent that is fit for use.”
The letter is addressed “For Richard Hingston, Surgeon, in Penryn,” and is followed by an invoice of goods sent by “Bevans and Cookworthy.”
At this time the business was still carried on under the style of “Bevans and Cookworthy.” The death of his wife, which took place within a few months of the writing of this letter, entirely took away his attention from business, and his researches into china clays were thrown aside. He retired into seclusion at Looe, in Cornwall, where he remained for several months, and, on his return to business, took his brother Philip, who, it appears, had lately returned from abroad, into partnership, and carried it on, with him under the style of “William Cookworthy & Co.” This arrangement enabled Cookworthy to devote his time to the scientific part of the business, and to the prosecution of his researches, while his brother took the commercial management of the concern. Left thus more to the bent of his scientific inclinations, he pursued his inquiries relative to the manufacture of porcelain, and lost no opportunity of searching into and experimenting upon the properties of the different natural productions of Cornwall; and it is related of him that, in his journeys into that county, he has passed many nights sitting up with the managers of mines, obtaining information on matters connected with mines and their products. In the course of these visits he first became acquainted with the supposed wonderful properties of the “Divining Rod,” or “Dowsing Rod,” as it was called by the Cornish miners, in the discovery of ore of various kinds.
In the magic properties of this rod he was an ardent believer, and he wrote an elaborate dissertation upon its uses, which has been published. It is entitled “Observations on the Properties of the Virgula Divina,” and contains, from beginning to end, such a series of statements as would do well to go side by side with the tales of spririt-rapping in our day, and which make one wonder at the amount of credulity that a clever man may occasionally exhibit. So ardent a believer was he in the value of this rod, that he did not hesitate to uphold it in the presence of men of high scientific attainments, and to carry on experiments occasionally to prove to them its correctness. As might be expected, on most occasions these experiments failed, but the operator had always some good reason ready to be assigned for the mishap. On one occasion, after having warmly descanted on its properties to Dr. Mudge and Dr. Johnson, he agreed to try in his own garden the experiment as to whether any metal was to be found beneath its surface, affirming that if metal, whether large or small in quantity, and at whatever depth, existed, the rod would immediately indicate its whereabouts. The doctors having previously taken the precaution to have one of Cookworthy’s large iron mortars, used in his laboratory, buried in one corner of the garden, unknown to him, the examination with the rod was gravely made, and resulted in Cookworthy triumphantly affirming that no metal existed on the spot. The learned doctors then, in his presence, dug out the mortar to prove that he was wrong, and had signally failed in his trial. Cookworthy, nothing disconcerted, however, immediately exclaimed, “Ah, that’s an amalgam! my rod has no sympathy with amalgams,” and thus spoiled their joke, and kept his own position at the same time.
His journeys into Cornwall, however, were productive of much more important results than the fabulous properties of the divining rod, for it was in these journeys that he succeeded in discovering, after much anxious inquiry and research, the materials for the manufacture of genuine porcelain. The information given him by the “Quaker” in 1745 had never been lost sight of, and he prosecuted inquiries wherever he went. After many searchings and experiments, he at length discovered the two materials, first in Tregonnin Hill, in Germo parish; next in the parish of St. Stephen’s; and again at Boconnoc, the family seat of Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. There is a kind of traditionary belief that he first found the stone he was anxious to discover in the tower of St. Columb Church, which is built of stone from St. Stephen’s, and which thus led him to the spot where it was to be procured. At this time he lodged at Carlogges, in St. Stephen’s parish, with a Mr. Yelland, and was in the habit of going about the neighbourhood with his “dowsing rod,” in search of mineral treasures. This discovery would probably be about 1754 or 1755.
Having made this important discovery, Cookworthy appears to have determined at once to carry out his intention of making porcelain, and to secure the material to himself. To this end he went to London to see the proprietors of the land, and to arrange for the royalty of the materials. In this he succeeded; and ultimately Lord Camelford joined him in the manufacture of china, and, as appears from a letter of that nobleman to Polwhele, the historian of Cornwall, the two expended about three thousand pounds in prosecuting the work. The letter of Lord Camelford, which is dated “Boconnoc, Nov. 30, 1790,” is as follows:—
“With regard to the Porcelain Manufactory that was attempted to be established some years ago, and which was afterwards transferred to Bristol, where it failed, it was undertaken by Mr. Cookworthy, upon a friend of his having discovered on an estate of mine, in the parish of St. Stephen’s, a certain white saponaceous clay, and close by it a species of granite, or moor-stone, white, with greenish spots, which he immediately perceived to be the two materials described by the missionary Père D’Entrecolles, as the constituent parts of Chinese porcelain, the one giving whiteness and body to the paste, the other vitrification and transparency. The difficulties found in proportioning properly these materials, so as to give exactly the necessary degree of vitrification and no more, and other niceties with regard to the manipulation, discouraged us from proceeding in this concern, after we had procured a patent for the use of our materials, and expended on it between two and three thousand pounds. We then sold our interest to Mr. Champion, of Bristol.”
It will be seen that Lord Camelford in this letter says that the discovery was made by a friend of Cookworthy’s. Whether this were so or not is matter of little consequence, but it is due to Cookworthy, who was strictly conscientious and scrupulously honest and straightforward in all his transactions, to say that he has left it on record that he himself made the discovery, as will be seen by the following highly interesting paper written by him, but unfortunately without date:—
“It is now near twenty years since I discovered that the ingredients used by the Chinese in the composition of their porcelain, were to be got, in immense quantities, in the county of Cornwall; and as I have since that time, by abundance of experiments, clearly proved this to the entire satisfaction of many ingenious men, I was willing this discovery might be preserved to posterity, if I should not live to carry it into a manufacture; and, with this view, I have thought proper to put in writing, in a summary way, all I have discovered about this matter.
“The account of the materials used by the Chinese is very justly given by the Jesuit missionaries, as well as their manner of preparing and mixing them into the China-ware paste. They observe, the Chinese have two sorts of bodies for porcelain; one prepared with Petunse and Caulin, the other with Petunse and Wha She or Soapy Rock. The Petunse they describe to be prepared from a quarry stone of a particular kind, by beating it in stamping-mills, and washing off and settling the parts which are beaten fine. This ingredient gives the ware transparency and mellowness, and is used for glazing it. The stone of this Petunse is a species of the granite, or, as we in the west call it, the moor-stone.