“NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said Edward Heylyn and Thomas Frye, in pursuance of the said provisoe, contained in the said recited Letters Patent, do hereby describe and ascertain the nature of our said Invention, and the manner and of what material the same is to be performed, as hereinafter is mentioned (that is to say):—
“The material is an earth, the produce of the Chirokee nation in America, called by the natives unaker, the propertys of which are as follows, videlicet, to be very fixed, strongly resisting fire and menstrua, is extreamly white, tenacious, and glittering with mica. The manner of manufacturing the said material is as follows:—Take unaker, and by washing seperate the sand and mica from it, which is of no use; take pott ash, fern ash, pearl ash, kelp, or any other vegetable lixiviall salt, one part of sands, flints, pebbles, or any other stones of the vitryfying kind; one other part of these two principles form a glass in the usual manner of making glass, which when formed reduce to an impalpable powder. Then mix to one part of this powder two parts of the washed unaker, let them be well worked together until intimately mixed for one sort of ware; but you may vary the proportions of the unaker and the glass; videlicet, for some parts of porcelain you may use one half unaker and the other half glass, and so in different proportions, till you come to four unaker and one glass; after which knead it well together, and throw it on the wheel, cast it into moulds, or imprint it into utensils, ornaments, &c.; those vessells, ornaments, &c., that are thrown, should be afterwards turned on a lathe and burnished, it will then be in a situation to be put into the kiln and burned with wood, care being taken not to discolour the ware, otherwise the process will be much hurt. This first burning is called biscuiting, which, if it comes out very white, is ready to be painted blue, with lapis lazuli, lapis armenis, or zapher, which must be highly calcined and ground very fine. It is then to be dipt into the following glaze:—Take unaker forty pounds, of the above glass ten pounds, mix and calcine them in a reverberatory; then reduce, and to each pound when reduced add two pounds of the above glass, which must be ground fine in water, and left of a proper thickness for the ware to take up a sufficient quantity. When the vessells, ornaments, &c., are dry, put them into the kiln in cases, burn them with a clean wood fire, and when the glaze runs true lett out the fire, and it is done, but must not be taken out of the kiln till it is thorough cold.”
In 1748 Thomas Frye took out another patent, the specification for which, enrolled March 17, 1749, is as follows:—
“WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Second, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the Seventeenth day of November, in the twenty-third year of His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said Thomas Frye, His especial licence that I, the said Thomas Frye, during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend my “New Method of Making a certain Ware, which is not Inferior in Beauty and Fineness, and is rather Superior in Strength, than the Earthenware that is brought from the East Indies, and is comonly known by the Name of China, Japan, or Porcelain Ware;” in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Thomas Frye, by a writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty’s High Court of Chancery within four kalendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more at large appear.
“NOW KNOW YE, that in complyance with the said provisoe, I, the said Thomas Frye, do hereby declare that the said Invention is to be performed in the manner following (that is to say):—
“As there is nothing in nature but by calcination, grinding, and washing will produce a fixed indissoluble matter, distinguished by the name of virgin earth, the properties of which is strictly the same whether produced from animals, vegetables, or fossills, no other difference arising from the process but that some bodys produce it in greater quantities than others, as all animal substances, all fossils of the calcarious kind, such as chalk, limestone, &c.; take therefore any of these classes, calcine it till it smokes no more, which is an indication that all the volatile sulpherous parts are dissipated, and that the saline are sett loose; then grind and wash in many waters to discharge the salts and filth, reiterate the process twice more, when the ashes or virgin earth will be fit for use; then take of these ashes two parts, one part of flint, or white peble, or clear sand, either producing the same effect, which mix together with water and make into balls or bricks, and burn them in a feirce fire, then grind it fine, and it is ready to be mixed with one third part of its weight of pipeclay, and temper it well, when it is fit to be thrown on the wheel, which, when finished and dry, is to be burned as all other pottery ware till it is transparent and of a fine colour, then to be painted with smalt or zaffer, as it is required to be deeper or paler, and it is ready to be glazed with the following preparation:—Take saltpetre one part, red lead two parts, sand, flint, or other white stones, three parts. To make a glass, melt it well and grind it, to every twenty pounds of which add six pounds of white lead, adding a small portion of smalt to clean the colour; mix it well and glaze the ware, which is done by dipping in the vessell and setting it on to dry, when it must be put in cases and burned as above with wood, till the surface of the ware is clear and shining, and it is finished.”
In these specifications we have important materials touching the Bow china works, under which head they will again be referred to. About this time, the Chelsea, Worcester, and Derby, and, a little later, the Plymouth, porcelain works were established. The year in which this specification was enrolled, 1749, is memorable as the year when Josiah Wedgwood completed his term of apprenticeship, and when, consequently, he entered upon that course of work and life which have ever since had so brilliant and so marked an effect upon the potter’s art in this country. At this time, too, there were in Staffordshire a number of very skilful potters, who were, even before Wedgwood’s time, making rapid strides in the art. To some of these I shall refer later on in this work.
The next patent taken out was in 1762, by “William White, of Fulham, in the county of Middlesex, potter,” for making white crucibles or melting-pots of Stourbridge clay and Dorsetshire clay, calcined, mixed with Woolwich sand, and water, and trodden together, and burned. Two years later, James Williamson and Joseph Spackman patented “a new method of turning ovals in pewter, English china, and all other earthenwares,” on a lathe with movable chucks and sliding ring, of their inventing. In 1766, “the Count de Lauraguais, of London,” having, “by his petition, humbly represented unto us, that by labour, study, travelling, and expence in trying experiments, he hath found out and invented ‘a new method of making porcelain ware in all its different branches, viz.—to make the coarser species of china, the more beautiful of the Indies, and the finest of Japan, in a manner different from any that is made in our dominions, and he, having the materials tryed in Great Britain, has brought the same to so great perfection that the porcelain made therewith after his new method far excells any that has hitherto been made in Great Britain, the same not being fusible by fire, as all other china made there is,’” took out a patent for fourteen years, but no specification seems to have been enrolled.
During all this time the pottery district of Staffordshire was rapidly increasing, and important strides were being made by its manufacturers in the improvement of their art. In various parts of the country, too, old pot works continued their business in an improved state, and new ones sprang up in every direction. The history of the art, therefore, becomes that of the various works which I shall have to pass under review. The patents taken out from this period to the close of the century are some guide to this state of progress, but not much; for it is an undoubted fact, that many of the most important improvements and most reliable inventions were never patented at all, while others, which were the gradual result of daily practice, were not sufficiently “inventions” to entitle them to patent right.
In 1768 William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, took out a patent for his newly invented porcelain, which was renewed in 1775 to Richard Champion; to these reference will be made under the heads of “Plymouth” and “Bristol.”