“2. The White Slip: this, before it is work’t, is of a dark blewish colour, yet makes the ware yellow, which, being the lightest colour they make any of, they call it, as they did the clay above, the white slip.
“3. The Red Slip, made of a dirty reddish clay, which gives ware a black colour.
Neither of which clays or slips must have any sand or gravel in them. Upon this account, before it be brought to the wheel, they prepare the clay by steeping it in water in a square pit till it be of a due consistence; then they bring it to their beating board, where, with a long Spatula, they beat it till it be well mixt; then, being first made into great squarish rolls, it is brought to the wageing board, where it is slit into thin flat pieces with a wire, and the least stones or gravel pick’t out of it. This being done, they wage it, i.e. knead or mould it like bread, and make it into round balls proportionable to their work; and then ’tis brought to the wheel, and formed as the workman sees good.
“27. When the potter has wrought the clay either into hollow or flat ware, they set it abroad to dry in faire weather, but by the fire in foule; turning them as they see occasion, which they call whaving. When they are dry they stouk them, i.e. put ears and handles to such vessels as require them. These also being dry, they slip or paint them, with their severall sorts of slip, according as they designe their work; when the first slip is dry, laying on the others at their leisure, the orange slip makeing the ground, and the white and red the paint; which two colours they break with a wire brush, much after the manner they doe when they marble paper, and then cloud them with a pencil when they are pretty dry. After the vessels are painted they lead them with that sort of Lead Ore they call Smithum, which is the smallest ore of all, beaten into dust, finely sifted, and strewed upon them; which gives them the gloss, but not the colour; all the colours being chiefly given by the variety of slips, except the motley colour, which is procured by blending the Lead with Manganese, by the workmen call’d Magnus. But when they have a mind to shew the utmost of their skill in giving their wares a fairer gloss than ordinary, they lead them then with lead calcined into powder, which they also sift fine and strew upon them as before, which not only gives them a higher gloss, but goes much further too in their work than the lead ore would have done.
“28. After this is done they are carried to the oven, which is ordinarily above 8 foot high, and about 6 foot wide, of a round copped forme, where they are placed one upon another from the bottom to the top; if they be ordinary wares, such as cylindricall butter-pots, &c., that are not leaded, they are exposed to the naked fire, and so is all their flat ware, though it be leaded, having only parting shards, i.e. thin bits of old pots, put between them to keep them from sticking together; but if they be leaded hollow wares, they doe not expose them to the naked fire, but put them in shragers, that is, in coarse metall’d pots made of marle (not clay) of divers formes, according as their wares require, in which they put commonly three pieces of clay, called Bobbs, for the ware to stand on, to keep it from sticking to the shragers; as they put them in the shragers, to keep them from sticking to one another (which they would certainly otherwise doe by reason of the leading), and to preserve them from the vehemence of the fire, which else would melt them downe, or at least warp them. In twenty-four hours an oven of pots will be burnt; then they let the fire goe out by degrees, which in ten hours more will be perfectly done, and then they draw them for sale, which is chiefly to the poor Crate-men, who carry them at their backs all over the countrey, to whome they reckon them by the piece, i.e. Quart, in hollow ware, so that six pottle, or three gallon bottles, make a dozen, and so more or less to a dozen as they are of greater or lesser content. The flat wares are also reckoned by pieces and dozens, but not (as the hollow) according to their content, but their different bredths.”
A round dish of the “combed ware,” or marbled or mottled ware, described by Plot, is shown on Fig. [317]. Some of the examples I have seen are exceedingly delicate and minute in their patterns; others, as the engraving, have been “combed” with a coarse comb or wire brush. The lead for glazing, named by Plot, was procured from the Derbyshire lead mines—the ore being powdered, or “punned,” and dusted on to the soft clay vessel before firing.
Fig. 317.
Previous to this, in 1671, John Dwight took out a patent in the petition for which he stated that “he had discovered the Mistery of Transparent Earthen Ware, comonly knowne by the Names of Porcelaine or China and Persian Ware, as alsoe the Misterie of the Stone Ware vulgarly called Cologne Ware; and that he designed to introduce a Manufacture of the said Wares into our Kingdome of Englande, where they have not hitherto been wrought or made.” This was the origin of the famous Fulham works, a full account of which will be given in another part of this volume.
In 1676 John Ariens Van Hamme, “in pursuance of the incouragement he hath received from our Ambassadour at the Hague, is come over to settle in this our kingdome with his family, to exercise his ‘Art of makeing Tiles and Porcelaine and other Earthen Wares, after the way practised in Holland,’ which hath not beene practised in this our kingdome,” took out a patent for fourteen years for the sole practice of his art. The “tiles” named in his patent would, of course, be the “Dutch Tiles” as they were always called, and which were used for the lining of rooms, the decoration of fire-places, and for various other purposes. They were about four inches square, made of a common kind of clay, and faced, as all delf ware was, with a fine white slip. On this was painted a pattern—a group of figures, the illustration of some sacred or profane story, foliage, birds, or other devices, in blue colour, and then glazed and fired. On one of these tiles is represented a lady letting her lover down from her chamber into the street below, by a rope which she holds in her hand, and others have various devices. The manufacture of these tiles was carried on largely in England, and further notices will be given under the head of Liverpool, &c.