Alderman Bearcraft, Tho. Cooksey, John Wynn, Rowl. Hancock, Gloucestershire; Rich. Osborne, Tho. Woorrel, John Chilton, Sam. Beadle, Essex; Simon Meazy, John Lawson, John Backer, John Peartree, Suffolk; John Clarke, Senior, John Clarke, Junior, Will. Baines, Tho. Baines, Dan. Baines, John Smith, John Carter, Dan. Wenden, Sam. Wrinch, London; Dan. Barrs, John St. Berry, are all Clothiers, Fullers, and Cloth-Workers; being the most eminent in their several Places; as well for Honesty, as great Traders, and good Estates; they all swore they had made the most impartial Experiments they could of the said Warner’s Clay, now in dispute, being the same taken out of the King’s Celler, that they tried it upon several sorts of Goods, as several sorts of Cloth, Bays, Cloth-Serges, and Perpetuanæs, and every one possitively affirmed that it was no Fuller’s-Earth, but on the contrary was an absolute Enemy to the Woollen Manufacture; for instead of scouring, it fix’d the Grease in the Grownd of all the Goods, that were done with it, and instead of makeing them White, it absolutely stained them Yellow, all which was apparent to the most common Eye, in all the above-said several sorts of Goods, produced in Court: They likewise declared upon Oath, that they were all Strangers to the said Warner; and that it was as prejudicial to their interest, to have Fullers-Earth Transported, as any men’s, and therefore could have no Inducement to favour the said Warner, beyond the Merits of his cause, to the Violation of their Consciences.
This is so just a Recital of the Evidence given on behalf of the said Warner, that he challenges the greatest of his Enemies to detect him of the least Falsehood therein; and if his Adversaries had been as fair in representing theirs, there would have been no need of this; for whereas in their printed Papers they make their Witnesses to affirm the said Warner’s clay was tried in all Experiments, without any mixture, there was not above One or Two, but upon cross-Examination at the Tryal, owned they used either Segg and Hogs dung, or Soap and Gauls with it, which would have scowered any Cloath better without the said Clay than with it.
It may not be amiss likewise to observe that for a whole Year in which the Custom-House Officers have been so very diligent in spreading the Fame of the said Warner’s Clay to be the best Fullers-Earth in England, he hath not been able to sell the least quantity of it as such, tho’ he has proffered it to all Men for a very little more than one-Third of what Fullers-Earth is generally sold for.
The Delft ware here made was of the ordinary kind, same as imported from Holland, and as that made in various English localities, and, being without mark, is not to be distinguished from others. Besides tiles, plates, jugs, mugs, dishes, &c., sack and other wine bottles, apothecaries’ pill-slabs, wine-bin labels, &c., were made. Some of these pill-slabs are preserved in the Jermyn Street Museum, as are also some of the “sack-pots,” both of which may most probably, as well as the apothecaries’ jars, be ascribed to Lambeth. They are all of Delft ware, painted with blue, in the same manner as the tiles and other articles of this ware.
In 1820 there “were six or seven potters in Lambeth,” says Mr. Goddard, “working some sixteen small kilns, of seven or eight feet in diameter, the produce of each kiln being under £20 worth of ware, the principal articles made being blacking bottles, ginger-beer bottles (very extensively made still), porter and cider bottles (not so largely made now), spruce-beer bottles (gone, with the beer, quite out of fashion), ink bottles (more used now than ever), oil bottles, pickle jars, hunting jugs, &c. A few chemical vessels were also turned out well from one kiln belonging to an eccentric individual, whose chief boast was to drink a gallon of beer a day, and do without rest on Sundays.” In 1860: “In place of some sixteen kilns, turning out each under £20 per kiln, we have now about seventy, turning out each, perhaps, on an average £50. They consume upwards of 20,000 tons of coal, paying a corporation tax of say £2,100 per annum. The law requires this quantity to be burnt without smoke, and, after immense cost and labour, this difficulty may be called surmounted. Twenty-three thousand tons of clay are annually changed into useful articles, giving employment to more than eight hundred persons. The returns of the Lambeth potters cannot be estimated at less than £140,000.”
High Street.—From about 1750 to 1770 the Delft ware works were carried on by a Mr. Griffiths, who had, for those days, a large establishment. A curious reference to this manufactory occurs in the following extract from the Monthly Magazine for 1797. A man, at that time unknown, but who turned out to be James Doe, a potter, committed suicide by drowning, on the 14th of September in that year, at Sea Mill Docks, two and a half miles from Bristol, having remained “fasting and praying,” without food or bedding in the ruined building there from the 11th, waiting opportunity and determination to commit the rash act; and having, during the whole of that time, written a kind of diary of his feelings and intentions, his hopes and fears, on the walls of the old room he remained in. Mr. Joseph James interested himself much in the matter, and wrote an account for the Monthly Magazine; and this, and the inquest, and other means he took, resulted in the discovery of the name and some particulars of the life of the suicide. Two of the letters forwarded in October, 1797, are highly interesting as showing at what works he had been employed. The first letter is from London, from “a respectable proprietor of a pottery there,” and thus runs:—
“To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.
“Sir,
“The extraordinary and affecting manuscript writing of the unfortunate stranger found drowned in Sea-Mill Dock, which I transmitted to you last month, having very probably excited the attention and sympathy of many of your numerous readers, I feel it a duty incumbent upon me to lay before them (through the channel of your useful publication) some information which I have since been enabled to procure of this unhappy and extraordinary person.
“A few days previous to the publication of your magazine, I caused a paragraph to be again inserted in the Bristol newspapers, requesting the attention of the readers to the personal description of the stranger found drowned at Sea-Mill Dock, and inviting the two women who had made inquiries after a stranger that was missing, and answering the same description, to come forward with their information, as the only probable means left of tracing out the name and connections of this unfortunate stranger. I was soon after waited on by two gentlemen of Bristol of the name of Ring, the proprietors of a large pottery, whose information and description of a person lately come to Bristol, and who worked in their manufactory, in the art of painting china, so exactly corresponded with the clothing and person of the man found drowned at Sea-Mills, that there remained not a doubt of his being the person, the subject of their inquiry. Through their polite assistance I obtained the name of the deceased, which is James Doe, and I also got an interview with the K—f—m acquaintance, who, having visited the tenement, and viewed the manuscript writing there upon the wall, recognised the handwriting of his friend; he gave me likewise a description of his person and dress, which corresponded with that already published. For particulars of the deceased’s family and friends, I was referred to several persons in London, one of whom, a respectable proprietor of a pottery there, writes thus:—