Drinkwater.—Another Delft ware pottery was situated at the bottom of Duke Street, in a small street which, from that establishment, took the name which it still retains, of “Pot-House Lane.” These works were conducted by Mr. George Drinkwater (who was born in the neighbourhood of Preston), brother to Mr. James Drinkwater, who, in the navy, acquired considerable riches and honour, and was ancestor of Sir John Drinkwater. The works were not, however, of very long continuance, and except they can be authenticated by evidence of descent, &c., the productions cannot be distinguished from those of the other potteries of the time. In the Mayer museum are some authenticated specimens of Drinkwater’s make, among which a large plate, twenty-three inches in diameter, is the most interesting.
Spencer.—Another potwork of a similar kind was established by a Mr. Thomas Spencer, at the bottom of Richmond Row. These works were, however, carried on only for a few years, when Mr. Spencer removed to the “Moss Pottery,” near Prescot, where he continued to make coarse red ware for common use.
Chaffers.—One of the most noted men connected with the ceramic art in Liverpool was Richard Chaffers, who made great advances in that art, and to whom his native town owed the introduction of the manufacture of china. He was the son of a shipwright of considerable eminence and means; was born in Mersey Street, Liverpool, in the year 1731, one year only after the birth of Josiah Wedgwood; and was apprenticed to Mr. Alderman Shaw, the Delft ware potter, of whom I have already spoken. About 1752 he commenced business on his own account, for which purpose he took, or erected, some small works on the north side, and nearly at the bottom of Shaw’s Brow, where he began making the ordinary kind of Delft ware of the period, the same as he had learned to manufacture during his apprenticeship. These productions he, as well as the other makers in Liverpool, in great measure exported to what were then our American colonies, now the United States of America. In the manufacture of this ordinary blue and white ware—the staple of the trade as it then existed—Chaffers continued for some years actively employed. From the Delft ware Chaffers passed on to the manufacture of fine white earthenware, and produced an excellent body, and an almost faultless glaze. The rapid strides which Wedgwood was making in the art served as a strong incentive to Richard Chaffers, and he determined to go on improving until his productions should equal those of his great rival. In this, of course, he did not succeed, but he did succeed in making the pottery of Liverpool better than that of most localities. A dated, though not very early, example of Chaffers’s make is fortunately in the Mayer museum and is here engraved (Fig. [20]). It is, Mr. Mayer says, “a pepper-box of the hour-glass shape,” painted in blue on a white ground, with a chequered border at top and bottom, and the name,
Fig. 20.
Richard Chaffers 1769