Armed with his new Act of Parliament, by which he was empowered to enjoy nearly twenty-two years’ patent right, Champion spared no pains and no expense to make the productions of his works as good as possible; and that he continued to produce a magnificent body and a remarkably fine glaze, and turned out some truly exquisite specimens of fictile art, both in design, in potting, in modelling, and in painting, is fully evident by examples still remaining in the hands of collectors.
The commoner description of goods, the blue and white ware, seems to have been, very naturally, considered by Champion to be the branch most likely to pay him, commercially, and this he at one time cultivated to a greater extent than any other branch. His acknowledged and advertised model was the Dresden, and his best efforts were turned in this direction. The patterns which he adopted, being, naturally, in many cases almost identical with those produced at Worcester and other places—which, of course, arose from the fact of the different works copying from the same models—the ware made by Champion is sometimes apt to be appropriated by collectors to that manufactory. It may, however, easily be distinguished by those who are conversant with the peculiarities of its make.
In blue and white, Champion produced dinner, tea, and coffee services, toilet pieces, jugs, mugs, and all the varieties of goods usually made at that period. The blue is usually of good colour, and the painting quite equal to that of other manufactories. Some of these pieces are embossed, and of really excellent workmanship. A good deal of the blue and white ware was marked with the usual cross, but it appears more than probable that the greatest part of this kind of goods passed out of the works unmarked.
Another characteristic class of goods made by Champion was the imitation of the most common Chinese patterns, examples of which are shown in the next engraving of a saucer and a teapot.
There is a thorough Chinese style in the decoration of these pieces, and the colouring is also remarkably well reproduced. The saucer bears the usual mark of the cross, but very many examples of this class which have come under my notice are not marked at all, and pass as foreign pieces. In the same group I have given a cup of elegant form, but of different style, to show the beauty of its outline. Transfer printing was not, it would appear, practised by Champion, but some examples, Mr. Owen informs me, are known, which, although made at Bristol, were evidently printed at Worcester.
Figs. 743 to 745.
The expenses attendant on this unwarrantable opposition in Parliament drained Champion’s exchequer, and despite the energy of himself, the skill of his workmen, and the beauty of the ware produced at his manufactory, Richard Champion’s hopes of permanently establishing an art in Bristol, which should not only be an honourable and useful, but a remunerative one, proved fallacious, and in little more than five years from his obtaining of the Act of Parliament, the works which he had laboured so hard to establish, and on which he had expended so much time, money, and skill, were lost to the city of Bristol, and removed for ever from its walls, but not, fortunately, until he had proved incontestably his ability to produce a genuine porcelain of the finest texture, and of the most artistic and finished style.
In 1775 Champion advertised his works as “Patent China, at the Manufactory in Castle Green.” In 1776 he advertised it thus:—
“Established by Act of Parliament, The Bristol China Manufactory in Castle Green. This China is greatly superior to every other English Manufactory (sic). Its texture is fine, exceeding the East India and its strength so great that water may be boiled in it. It is a true Porcelain composed of a native clay and is thus distinguished from every other English China which being composed of a Number of Ingredients mix’d together the principal part being Glass occasions it soon to get dirty in the wear renders it continually liable to Accidents and in every respect only an Imitation and therefore stiled by Chemists, a false Porcelain.”