Mention has already been made of the “biscuit” porcelain figures made at Derby, which are superior in style to anything else made in-Europe in the 18th century except the “biscuit” porcelains of Sèvres. The Derby “biscuits” of the best type range from 1790 to 1810, and the finest specimens have a “waxy” surface, though there is little or no sheen and every detail remains as crisp as when the figure left the hand of its maker. The most famous of these figures are the portrait medallions and statuettes of British generals and admirals which were modelled by an artist named Stephan. Spengler, a Swiss, modelled numerous groups adapted from the drawings of Angelica Kaufmann, while a workman named Coffee seems to have modelled only rustic figures and animals.
Plymouth and Bristol.—The porcelain factories at Plymouth and Bristol are mainly noteworthy because they were the only English factories in which a true porcelain strictly analogous to the Chinese was ever manufactured. William Cookworthy, a Quaker druggist of Plymouth, was greatly interested in attempting to discover in Cornwall and Devonshire minerals similar to those which were described in the letters of Père d’Entrecolles as forming the basis of Chinese porcelain. After many years of travel and research he ascertained the nature of the Cornish stone and Cornish clay, and in 1768 he founded a works at Plymouth for the production of a porcelain similar to the Chinese from these native materials. Readers interested in this abortive enterprise, from which such great results were afterwards to come, can only be referred to the general histories of English porcelain, for the factory was removed to Bristol in 1770 and was shortly afterwards transferred to Richard Champion, a Bristol merchant, who had already been dabbling in the fashionable pursuit of porcelain making. Champion’s Bristol factory lasted from 1773 to 1781, when the business had to be sold to a number of Staffordshire potters owing to the serious losses it had entailed. The Bristol porcelain, like that of Plymouth, was always a true felspathic porcelain resembling the Chinese, but made from the china clay and china stone of Cornwall. It is, therefore, harder and whiter than the other English porcelains, and its cold, harsh, glittering glaze marks it off at once from the wares of Bow, Chelsea, Worcester or Derby.
The Bristol porcelain resembled that of Meissen quite as much in its style of decoration as in the nature of its materials. One can point to nothing distinctly English about it, and if specimens now command very high prices in the salerooms it is on account of their rarity rather than of any intrinsic quality or beauty that they possess.
Table ware of various kinds formed the greater part of the production of the Bristol works, but a considerable number of figures are known, in many cases obviously copied from those of Meissen, and a few large hexagonal vases similar in style to specimens produced at Chelsea and at Worcester. The most distinctive pieces made at the Bristol factory are certain small plaques or slabs in “biscuit” porcelain, usually bearing in the centre a portrait medallion or armorial bearings surrounded by a wreath of skilfully modelled flowers. Good examples of these choice productions are to be seen in the British Museum.
| Plymouth, Bristol, Champion and Swansea marks. |
The Plymouth factory is supposed to have adopted as its general mark the alchemical symbol for tin. This mark was also used to a limited extent at the Bristol factory, though the general Bristol mark was a cross or a copy of the crossed swords of Meissen. The Staffordshire potters who bought the rights of the Bristol porcelain factory from Champion established a works at Shelton, near Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, under the name of New Hall Porcelain Co., but they never manufactured anything of artistic account.
Minor English Factories.—A number of other porcelain factories were founded in England in the latter half of the 18th century, but none of these produced ware of any particular merit. The porcelain made at Longton Hall by William Littler (1752-1758), always clumsy and ugly in form, is interesting for a splendid blue colour characteristic of the factory. This small venture was ultimately absorbed by William Duesbury.
The colony of potters established in Liverpool also made a certain amount of porcelain, as well as “Delft” and other earthenwares, and the Liverpool Museum contains some good examples of their productions.
A little factory at work at Lowestoft in the last quarter of the 18th century has attracted much more attention than it deserves, because certain writers foolishly attributed to it large quantities of “Armorial” porcelain which had, undoubtedly, been made in China. Recent excavations have established the fact that this factory was only of minor importance, and was mainly occupied in producing cheap wares in rivalry with, and even in imitation of, those of the more important English factories.
Towards the end of the 18th century the manufacture of English porcelain spread into the Staffordshire potteries, and the firms of Spode, Davenport and Minton became the most important English factories of the early 18th century. For notices of the minor English factories of the late 18th century and early 19th century, such as Caughley, Coalport, Swansea and Nantgarw, the student is referred to the special works dealing with the history of English porcelain.