V

PLYMOUTH

The name of Plymouth stands high in the records of English china factories. Its porcelain was the first hard porcelain produced in this country. Other English chinas melted when placed inside the pieces in the Plymouth kilns.

Not so well known as Josiah Wedgwood, of the Staffordshire potteries, William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, Quaker, chemist, porcelain maker, is worthy of a niche in the gallery of dead princes of ceramic art, and his is a name that will never be forgotten by those who know the history behind the old Plymouth vases and mugs and statues.

It is true the enterprise was a failure. It only ran fourteen years, and was, in 1774, transferred to Bristol. It is true that Lord Camelford, one of his partners, laments the three thousand pounds expended on it. But it is more than true that the results of William Cookworthy’s efforts were no failure.

The brief life history of the Quaker dreamer (we know he must have been a dreamer, for he translated some of Swedenborg’s works into English) is remarkable. At the age of fourteen, the eldest of a family of six fatherless children, he tramped from Plymouth up to London and commenced his apprenticeship to a chemist. His mother battled on, eking out her slender means by dressmaking. Later on, when William Cookworthy came home, his mother lived under his roof and became a leading favourite with the great people he knew. The poor Devon lad who wearily tramped to London over down and dale, dreaming golden dreams, came home to entertain Dr. Wolcot, the famous “Peter Pindar” of vitriolic pen, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain Cook, and the fighting Earl St. Vincent, who remarked, “whoever was in Mr. Cookworthy’s company was the wiser and better for having been in it”; while Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone Lighthouse, was an inmate of his house during the erection of the lighthouse.

In an early letter of Cookworthy’s we find him speaking of a certain unnamed, strange individual who came to him with some china earth. “’Twas found in the back of Virginia, where he was in quest of mines; and having read Duhalde, discovered both the petuntse and kaolin. ’Tis the latter earth he says, is the essential thing towards the success of the manufacture. He is gone for a cargo of it, having bought the whole country of the Indians where it rises.” We hear no more of this mysterious individual; but we do hear of extensive and painstaking researches by Cookworthy, till at length he is rewarded by discovering the very earth he wanted, in Cornwall, on the estate of Lord Camelford.

He established himself at Coxside, at the extreme angle which juts into the water at Sutton Pool. The buildings subsequently became a shipwright’s yard, and even then bore the name China House. We wonder, do they exist now?

The early examples of Plymouth are clumsy, sometimes very coarse and rough. Experience was wanting in firing. Most of the pieces were disfigured by fire-cracks. Of those decorated in blue the colour had run into the glazing. But Cookworthy did one thing—he was the first to produce cobalt blue direct from the ore.

The white ware of Plymouth, in which is introduced as ornament shells and seaweed and coral, is very artistic, and is one of the features of Plymouth, although none of this ware is marked. They mostly consist of salt-cellars, pickle-cups, and what would now be used to put roses in. The salt-cellar we illustrate is one of a pair in the Bethnal Green Museum; it has a plain, white body and cloudy glaze, and is unmarked. Similar shapes are believed to have been made at Bow. We reproduce a dainty piece, a shell dish of beautiful design, and ask—was Cookworthy a failure?

During the latter part of the fourteen years that Plymouth produced her china, Cookworthy, then nearing his seventieth year, thought to emulate SÈvres and Dresden, and employed several artists for decoration. He engaged the services of a French artist named Soqui from SÈvres, and he and Henry Bone, of Plymouth—one of his own apprentices—produced some finely-painted birds and flowers.

The mark of the Plymouth china is blue on the early clumsy pieces, and later was neatly drawn in red, sometimes blue. It is the chemical symbol for tin, being doubtless adopted by Cookworthy to denote that his materials came from the tin district. It is like the figure four, with a little curved loop at the beginning.

We reproduce a fine specimen of a splendid vase, hexagonal shape, sixteen inches high, in the possession of the Fry family at Bristol. It is richly decorated with festoons of finely modelled raised flowers, with painted butterflies and borders. This was the forerunner of the exquisite Bristol vase made by the firm which bought Cookworthy’s life secrets.

Devon and Plymouth suggest Elizabethan days and one man’s name flashes uppermost, but—

But there are heroes of peace and the arts of peace and that art of all arts, the art of self-effacement and William Cookworthy is one.

BRISTOL.

For several centuries earthenware was made at Bristol, and a very fair quality of blue delft was produced there, but it is not of the old potteries of Bristol that we shall speak, but of the manufacture which was transplanted from Plymouth to Bristol. We have related the struggles of William Cookworthy to establish Plymouth porcelain. The strenuous efforts to perfect the china were carried on by Richard Champion, of Bristol, merchant, who bought Cookworthy’s patent, and established the manufactory of hard porcelain at Bristol. Champion had, it appears, been associated with Cookworthy as partner when the works were at Plymouth.

In 1775, when Champion presented a petition to the House of Commons to be granted the patent right for a further period of fourteen years to himself, he was vigorously opposed by Josiah Wedgwood, who represented that by granting a patent to Champion, it would be detrimental to trade and injurious to the public, urging, among other grounds, that “the use of the natural productions of the soil ought to be the right of all.” Wedgwood presented a memorial to Parliament, and a fierce controversy ensued. “Much might be said on both sides,” as Sir Roger De Coverley observes, and much was said on both sides.

At first blush it seems hard that Cookworthy and Champion, who found the earth and worked hard at developing the manufactory in the West, should have no protection given to their secret. But Wedgwood, who speaks with authority, urged that when he invented his Queen’s Ware he did not apply for a patent, which would have limited its public utility. “Instead of one hundred manufactories of Queen’s Ware, there would have been one; and instead of an exportation to all quarters of the world, a few pretty things would have been made for the amusement of the people of fashion in England.”

Without going further into the details of a controversy which trenches upon questions of political economy two facts stand out, and the reader can judge of them as he will. The patent was granted by Parliament to Richard Champion, who was subsequently ruined, and left England to die in South Carolina; and secondly, hard paste was made at Plymouth and Bristol (never before or since in England), while the manufacture of the less difficult soft-paste porcelain and of pottery was carried on by the Staffordshire factories and Wedgwood.

During the struggle between Wedgwood and Champion one curious incident occurred. When the Bill was before the House of Lords for discussion, one of Champion’s witnesses left London for Bristol without permission. As it was necessary to bring him back at once, as the end of the session was at hand, he was recalled by an “express,” which travelled the 240 miles to Bristol in twenty-seven hours!

In 1775 was passed (15 George III., cap 52) “an Act for enlarging the term of Letters Patent granted by his present Majesty to William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, Chymist, for the sole use and exercise of a discovery of certain materials for making Porcelain, in order to enable Richard Champion, of Bristol, merchant (to whom the said Letters Patent have been assigned), to carry the said discovery into effectual execution for the benefit of the public.”

So we shortly find the Bristol factory in full swing. The stock of Plymouth, and the tried workmen, were transferred to Bristol. First of all, attention was paid to common blue and white ware as likely to demand a ready sale, and to be profitable. As in the case of Worcester and other factories, Champion took Oriental models, and some of his ware is confounded with other makers who used the same models. The blue was of good colour, and dinner, tea, and coffee services, as well as jugs and mugs, were turned out, sometimes marked with the Bristol cross, but oftentimes without any distinguishing mark at all, to the confoundment of the latter-day collectors.

Bristol was very successful in imitating the commoner forms of Chinese ware. We reproduce a teapot and cup and saucer. It will be observed that the cup follows the original model, and has no handle.

The usual mark of Bristol was a plain cross, sometimes in blue, sometimes in red, and often in neutral tint, or slatey-grey. The crossed swords of Dresden, accompanied by the Bristol cross and the figures 10, appear on one specimen.

Some of the following marks which we give have been assigned to Bristol. Figures sometimes occur as well as the cross; these are believed to denote the painters engaged on the piece, and are often marked in red. On one known Bristol piece, a date occurs. But to collectors of Bristol porcelain there is one test which also applies in more marked degree to the Plymouth ware; this is the series of spiral ridges which may often be observed on the surface of the ware when held in reflected light.

We have alluded to the somewhat heated controversy between Josiah Wedgwood and Richard Champion, who had transferred the plant from Plymouth and had applied for an extension of Cookworthy’s patent to himself. Josiah Wedgwood, we think somewhat unfairly, alleged that both Plymouth and Bristol factories were still in an experimental stage; he belittles their art, which “neither the ingenious discoverer nor the purchaser, for want, perhaps, of skill and experience in this particular business, have been able, during the space of seven years already elapsed, to bring to any useful degree of perfection.”

This is not the place to enter into the merits of a dead conflict between Staffordshire and Bristol. That Bristol was not merely an experimental factory is more than proved by the specimens which have come down to us, specimens, be it said, that are more eagerly sought after than many of Wedgwood’s productions, since they are of hard porcelain which Staffordshire never made, and which hard paste has never again been made in England, either before or since.

One of the choicest examples of the highest art of Bristol is preserved in the national collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is stated to have been “the best that the manufactory could produce.” It was made in 1774-5, within a few months of the establishment of the works at Bristol. This example is interesting too, as being one of the few examples of the Bristol works, of which the exact date can be ascertained.

In the year 1774 Edmund Burke was nominated for Bristol, the capital and richest city of the west. A fierce election contest followed, in which Burke was returned as one of the members. During this election he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, of Bristol, and it was then that Burke ordered a splendid set of china from Champion. We reproduce the cup and saucer of this service. It is profusedly and massively gilt in dead and burnished gold, the wreaths of laurel being in green, which was Burke’s electioneering colour.

Each piece, as will be seen, bears the monogram of Mrs. Smith, “S. S.” interlaced, formed of wreaths of roses in pink and gold, and also the arms of the family. This service is marked with the usual Bristol cross.

It is obviously absurd to have asserted that such china was merely experimental. The collector of to-day has more than hall-marked Bristol porcelain. Recently, at Christie’s Auction Rooms, £168 was paid for two small cups and a tea tray, and, alas! Cookworthy and Champion died unsuccessful men. If they are recognised to-day as martyrs to the ceramic art, their own generation were somewhat stiff-necked to their genius and enterprise.

The vase which we reproduce shows to what perfection the manufacturers had reached. Among the decorators of Bristol was Henry Bone, afterwards an R.A., and miniature enameller to the Royal Family. Bone was apprenticed to Champion for seven years, dating from January, 1772.

This vase, in the possession of the Fry family of Bristol, is of hexagonal shape and is 12¹/₄ inches in height. The landscapes are excellently painted, and it has well-modelled female busts on two of its sides, from which hang festoons of raised flowers in white. This vase and the other splendid and almost priceless vases in the possession of the same family are not marked. It appears that although only Champion’s name appears on the documents in connection with the Bristol factory, he had partners who assisted him financially, one of whom was Joseph Fry, whose only return, when the factory was discontinued, for the money he had sunk into the concern, was the set of vases now in the hands of his descendants.

We now come to the last act of Bristol. Wedgwood writes to Bentley in a letter, dated August 24, 1778, concerning Champion’s failure: “Poor Champion, you may have heard, is quite demolished; it was never likely to be otherwise, as he had neither professional knowledge, sufficient capital, nor scarcely any real acquaintance with the materials he was working upon. I suppose we might buy some Growan Stone and Growan Clay now upon easy terms, for they have prepared a large quantity this last year.”

His patent right was sold by Champion to a company of Staffordshire potters who continued the manufacture at New Hall for some little time until the ordinary soft paste was allowed to supersede Champion’s hard paste. So ended the triumphs of Bristol and Plymouth. It appears that from November, 1781, to April, 1782, Champion left his native city to superintend the works of the china company who had purchased his rights. But Edmund Burke came to his rescue, and, conjointly with Burke’s son Richard, Champion was appointed deputy paymaster-general. Champion occupied official apartments in Chelsea Hospital. In July a change of ministry lost him his post, but in April, 1783, he regained it, only to resign on the fall of the famous Coalition Ministry in January, 1784. In October, 1784, he left England for South Carolina, where he became a planter. Seven years after leaving England he died of fever, and lies buried in the New World.

There is nothing to be said—his fate was the fate of so many enthusiasts and workers in the field of art. Nobody has ever unveiled a monument to Champion’s memory or to Cookworthy’s memory. Nobody has designed a stained-glass window to record their ceramic triumphs.[1] Their monument—and it is a lasting one—lies on the china shelf; the votaries of Plymouth and of Bristol porcelain need no spark to quicken their fire.

We know Browning’s “Waring” and his unfulfilled promise of greatness, and how the friend who has lost him, “like a ghost at break of day,” wishes him back—

And the world would call back its neglected and unrequited men of genius if it could, and herein lies the principle that makes china command high prices—these conscience-prickings are the tribute posterity pays.

Characteristics of Plymouth and Bristol Porcelain.

Among special features of Plymouth and Bristol china, spiral ridges are to be seen, though often barely noticeable, running from the base transversely around the body of piece, more noticeable in basins and teapots, at an angle of 45°. The china of these factories is often untrue owing to imperfect firing, and is frequently cracked at base. The Bristol decorators had a partiality for wreaths and festoons of laurel in green, interspersed with detached bouquets of flowers. The Bristol glaze is rich and creamy white, and upon examination a series of minute depressions, somewhat similar to the bubbles on Oriental glaze, may be discovered.

SALE PRICES.