1888.] on Some Developments of English Pottery. 213 



in fact, vulgar when not merely feeble." The decadence which 

 then set in continued until the commencement of the new renaissance 

 with the reign of Her Majesty. 



From its purity and durability, pottery, embracing the finest 

 porcelain and the roughest earthenware, has been a useful adjunct — 

 I might almost say an absolute necessity — for the sanitarian, the 

 chemist, the architect, the agriculturist, and the electrician. 



The rapid advance of chemical and other scientific discoveries, and 

 the application to manufactures of scientific processes, has also led to 

 a vastly increased demand for pottery suited to such operations ; 

 while the gigantic development of telephone and telegraph has had 

 its proportionate effect on pottery production. The impetus given 

 to metallurgy has brought about a greatly extended use of crucibles, 

 and the rapid advance of sanitary science has given a distinct 

 impulse to pottery manufacture. Indeed, pottery has in no small 

 degree conduced to the satisfactory solution of the great sanitary 

 problems of the present age. The application of terra-cotta, too, has 

 led to the most successful results. 



The same advances in scientific research which have multiplied the 

 demand for pottery wares have had an equal influence in improving 

 their quality and efficiency, as well as reducing the cost of their 

 production. 



In 1846, anticipating an extensive use of stoneware for street and 

 house drainage, I began a special factory for its production, and since 

 that time the manufacture has increafeed till it may now be considered 

 a great national industry. 



The introduction of baths, sinks, lavatories, glazed bricks, ventilat- 

 ing and syphon traps, irrigation pipes, and many other inventions 

 have in late years provided the means of greatly reducing the death- 

 rate of large communities, and it is not too much to say that sanitary 

 science has advanced pari passu with the use of pottery. 



The increasing demand for chemical vessels of stoneware capable of 

 resisting acids may be regarded as giving the first important impulse to 

 the Lambeth Potteries. At the present time, care and experience, to- 

 gether with better machinery for the preparation of the material, makes 

 it practicable to produce vessels of four or five hundred gallons capacity. 



Under the category of things both useful and beautiful in pottery, 

 are earthenware tiles. In 1840, E. Pressor, of Birmingham, obtained 

 a patent for the manufacture of buttons by reducing the material of 

 porcelain to a dry powder, and subjecting it to strong pressure between 

 steel dies. Pressor disposed of part of his interest in this patent to 

 Minton, who then made some very beautiful buttons and studs. In 

 1841 Blashfield conceived that this process might be extended to the 

 manufacture of small tiles and tesserae. In 1843, the process of 

 manufacture was exhibited by Pressor and Blashfield at a meeting of 

 the Royal Society, when the late Prince Consort took great interest in 

 the making of tesseras, and desired an account of the whole subject 

 to be sent him. 



