“The manufacture of porcelain employs, in all, near a hundred men and boys; several of the painters earn a guinea and a half per week. Mr. Duesbury (who has also bought the manufactory at Chelsea) is every day bringing the art nearer to that perfection at which it has arrived in other countries. Derby porcelain is at present by no means contemptible: figures and other ornaments are among their most capital articles. Here is also a pottery, and I was showed an imitation of the Queen’s ware, but it does not come up to the original, the produce of Staffordshire.”
In the “Poll Book” of 1775, when Christopher Heath was Mayor of Derby, the following names occur:—
- Bakewell, Thomas, Derby, Pot-man.
- Dewsberry, William, Derby, China-man.
- Hill, Joseph, Derby, China-man.
- Needham, Henry, Derby, Pipe-maker.
- Simpson, Moses, Derby, Potter.
- Strong, Benjamin, Derby, Pipe-maker.
- Wood, William, London, China-man.
- Withers, Robert, Rotherham, Potter.
- Mosley, Thomas, Derby, Potter.
Bray, who wrote his “Tour” in the year 1777, says, speaking of Derby:—
“The china manufactory is not less worthy of notice. Under the care of Mr. Duesberry it does honour to this country. Indefatigable in his attention, he has brought the gold and blue to a degree of beauty never before obtained in England, and the drawing and coloring of the flowers are truly elegant. About one hundred [this number is in his second edition corrected to seventy] hands are employed in it, and happily many, very young, are enabled to earn a livelihood in the business.”
Dr. Johnson visited the Derby China Works in 1777, and the following is Boswell’s note on the visit:—
“When we arrived at Derby Dr. Butter accompanied us to see the manufactory of China there. I admired the ingenuity and delicate art with which a man fashioned clay into a cup, a saucer, or a teapot, while a boy turned round a wheel to give the mass rotundity. I thought this as excellent in its species of power as making good verses in its species. Yet I had no respect for this potter. Neither, indeed, has a man of any extent of thinking for a mere verse-maker, in whose numbers, however perfect, there is no poetry, no mind. The china was beautiful; but Dr. Johnson justly observed it was too dear; for that he could have vessels of silver of the same size, as cheap as what were here made of porcelain.”
Pilkington, in his “View of the Present State of Derbyshire,” published in 1789, says:—
“About forty years ago the manufacture of porcelain was begun by the late Mr. Duesbury. This ingenious artist brought it to such perfection as, in some respects, to equal the best foreign china. The ornamental part of the business was at first almost solely attended to. But the foreign demand being much interrupted by the last war, the proprietor turned his thoughts to the manufacture of useful porcelain. At this work a very rich and elegant dessert service, consisting of one hundred and twenty pieces, was lately made for His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The number of hands at present employed by Mr. Duesbury is seventy-two, and the manufacture is in a flourishing state.”
William Hutton, the historian of his native town and of Birmingham, who wrote his “History of Derby” in 1791, says:—