Prices at which collectors nowadays would be only too glad to purchase specimens. Fancy a quart Bristol mug, and a teapot-stand of the same, for half-a-crown! and a Chelsea leaf, a Plymouth teapot, and two Liverpool coffee-cups for sixpence!
The works must at this time have become noted, or they would not have attracted the attention of Josiah Wedgwood, and made him desirous of examining the “body,” and comparing it with other wares made in this country. That the china produced at and before this time was good there can be no doubt, and the purchase of a “slop-basin” shows that tea-services must, prior to that time, have been made. It would be interesting to find that this identical slop-basin was still preserved at Etruria, as, possibly, it may be, although I have failed to recognise it.
A curious circumstance connected with the first Robert Browne, the memory of which has been preserved in his family, is worth relating, as showing the schemes and the underhand practices which were resorted to by manufacturers in those days (as, alas! now), to worm out and steal the secrets of others. The workmen who had been engaged from London having been, as alluded to by Gillingwater, shamefully tampered with, and bribed to injure the work at Lowestoft, probably induced Mr. Browne to retaliate in the manner I am about to describe. Being desirous, soon after the commencement of the works, to ascertain how the glaze was prepared, some of the colours mixed, and other particulars concerning the ingredients used, he went to London, and under the disguise of a workman, engaged himself at one of the china manufactories—of course either Chelsea or Bow. Here, after a short time, he bribed the warehouseman to assist him in his design, and soon accomplished his purpose. The warehouseman locked him up secretly in that part of the factory where the principal was in the habit of mixing the ingredients after the workmen had left the premises. Browne was placed under an empty hogshead close to the counter or table on which the principal operated, and could thus see through an opening all that was going on. From his hiding-place he watched all the processes, saw the proportions of the different ingredients used, and gained the secret he had so long coveted. Having thus remained a willing prisoner for some hours, he was at last released when the principal left the place, and shortly afterwards returned to Lowestoft, after an absence of only two or three weeks, in full possession of the, till then, secret information possessed by the famed works of Chelsea or Bow.
It may be well to note that the Brownes, I am informed, were engaged in the staple trade of the place—that of the herring fishery as well as in that of the manufacture of porcelain. The firm also were shipowners, and kept vessels constantly running “to the Isle of Wight for a peculiar sand, which, with pulverised glass and pipeclay, formed principally the ingredients of the groundwork of the ware,” and to Newcastle for coals.
Lowestoft is, fortunately, particularly rich in dated examples of its productions; but it is worthy of remark, that the whole of these examples, with names and dates, which have come under my notice, are white and blue; showing that, during the period through which these dates run, that was the character of the china made at these works, and that the finer body and the elaborate colouring which distinguish so much of the Lowestoft porcelain, were of later date. But of this presently.
The earliest dated example of Lowestoft china ware I have yet seen is the inkstand just described, which bears the initials “R. B.,” and the date “1762.” In Mr. Norman’s collection was a bowl with the name “Abrm. Moore, 1765,” and a basin, said to have been made for Sarah Crisp, has her initials “S. C., 1765.” The next is a fine bowl, with a large group of Chinese figures—emperor, mandarins, &c.—painted in blue, and inscribed on the bottom with the name of an eccentric old maid, well known in the town, and whose gravestone lies in the churchyard:—
ELIZATH BUCKLE
1768.
This bowl and other pieces of a service (notably a basin and cream jug, painted with shepherd and shepherdess) made for her, were painted by her nephew, a man named Robert Allen, who, as a boy, was one of the first employed when the manufactory was established and remained there until its close. The bowl is in the possession of his aged daughter, Mrs. Johnson. This Robert Allen may well be classed amongst the “worthies” of Lowestoft. Working at the china manufactory from the first, he became foreman, and was entrusted with the mixing of the colours and the ingredients of the material itself, and remained so till the close of the factory in 1803. As a painter he appears to have been chiefly employed on blue; at all events the only authenticated specimens of his work which I have seen are of that colour. He also employed himself in staining glass, and numerous pieces of his work are still preserved by families in the town. His principal work was the painting in the east window of the parish church, which he completed in the year 1819, being then in his seventy-fourth year, and presented it to the town. In acknowledgment of this service a silver cup, now in possession of his daughter, and bearing the following inscription, was presented to him:—“A token of respect to Mr. Robert Allen, from his fellow-townsmen at Lowestoft, for having, at the advanced age of Seventy-four, gratuitously and elegantly ornamented the East Window of their Parish Church Anno. Dom. 1819.”
After the closing of the Lowestoft works, Allen, who dealt in china, &c., put up a small kiln at his own house, where he carried on operations on a limited scale, buying the unfinished ware from the Rockingham works and painting and finishing it himself for sale. Mr. Brameld, of the Rockingham works, who was an excellent painter on china, occasionally visited Lowestoft, and became attached to Allen, to whom he presented a set of five vases, beautifully painted from nature with flowers copied from specimens he had gathered on the Dene. He also presented him with a snuff-box, painted by himself.
Of the same year as the bowl above described (1768) a dated example in the possession of Mr. Seago, the town clerk of Lowestoft, is a bowl, with the words—