CHINA-WARE. 



189 



trict, their offspring being still called Telwrights 

 then we must admit that the manufacture was in 

 operation in Staffordshire prior to the Saxons' gaining 

 supreme power in the kingdom. In tracing the his- 

 tory of the practice of employing clay in the different 

 kinds of ware, it is to be remarked that the early 

 potters regarded merely the appearance of the baked 

 body, or clay material, the proportions of the com- 

 ponent, being directed by caprice. The early speci- 

 mens appear to have been vitrified, to preclude 

 porosity and brittleness ; their formation indicates 

 infancy in the manipulations, and a composition of 

 not more than two materials, varied in quantities as 

 their utility became more known. Many are to be 

 seen in a museum at Burslem, where Mr Wood has ar- 

 ranged them in accordance with dates, or eras of fifty 

 years each. Previous to the 17th century, there 

 existed little knowledge of the advantages resulting 

 from combination of days; but after that period, 

 some specimens, distinguished for beautiful shape, 

 tasteful ornament, ana durability, with the names 

 Thomas Toft, and Thomas Sans, and the date 1650, 

 were made of a compound of brick clay, and the alu- 

 inine or slate clay of the Burslem coal mines, and 

 this compound was subsequently much employed in 

 an unproved ware called scrolled or scrodled ware. 



The process of covering the ware with a glaze by 

 means of the combustion of common salt, causing 

 the fusion of the silica and iron in the clay, had long 

 existed on the continent ; but it commenced hi Staf- 

 fordshire about 1680, in consequence of Mr Thomas 

 Palmer, of Bagnall, seeing an earthen vessel of his 

 own manufacture, with the surface accidentally semi- 

 vitrified, by the heat and salt of a boiler for pork 

 pickle. The process, during many years, was prac- 

 tised on all coarse brown ware, and some other 

 kinds, and is continued at Lambeth, Bristol, Church 

 Gresley, and Chesterfield. The common brick clay, 

 and excess of decomposed slate clay, with fine sand 

 intermingled, by Mr William Miles of Hanley, pro- 

 duced white stoneware; and dusting the pulverized 

 ores of lead and manganese over the surface in the 

 first state, formed the brown stoneware. The com- 

 bustibility of the lead promoted the fusion of the 

 silica on the surface, and some employed manganese 

 and salt. In Burslem, a different kind of ware was 

 made by mixing the marl, where the coal bussets, or 

 crops out, with the finely pulverized millstone gritt of 

 the moorland ridge. This is the crouch ware, which, 

 when glazed with salt, appears compact, clean, and 

 durable ; and, at this day, the thin pieces, by vitres- 

 cence rendered semi-transparent, excite surprise that 

 they failed to suggest the manufacture of porcelain. 



About 1690, the brothers Elers of Nuremberg, from 

 the Chesterton brick clay, and the fine red clay of 

 Bradwell and Browhills, manufactured red porcelain ; 

 also a black ware ; and it would seem, that this lat- 

 ter, now called Egyptian, was suggested by the 

 appearance of some parts of the red ware, which 

 contained excess of iron, being left of a dark co- 

 lour when baked. We know not who first intro- 

 duced the practice of mixing fine grit with Devon- 

 shire clay, and when at a certain heat, by adding 

 salt for the purpose of glazing the surface, trans- 

 formed crouch ware into the best stoneware, having 

 all the essential qualities of the finest Japanese por- 

 celain. Mr Astbury, of Shelton, by mimicking the 

 idiot, obtained employment under Messrs. Elers, and 

 made himself acquainted with their peculiar pro- 

 cesses. He afterwards manufactured white stoneware 

 from the Shelton marl and Devonshire clay ; he also 

 made white dipped ware ; and being required to visit 

 London on business, a disease of his horse's eyes, at 

 Dunstable, being cured by the powder of a calcined 

 flint, he noticed its white appearance, adopted it 



among the materials used to wash his vessels ; but, 

 erelong, he mixed it with the Devonshire clay, to 

 form the first white pottery or chalk body. His son, 

 Thomas Astbury, by mixing the marl of Fenton Cal- 

 vert, instead of the Shelton marl with Devonshire 

 clay, formed the first cream-coloured stoneware. Dur- 

 ing the period of Mr Astbury's improvement of the 

 earthen-ware, the apprentice of a druggist in Saxony, 

 having obliged one of those self-deluded persons who 

 sought for the elixir vita, was, in return, made ac- 

 quainted with some of the processes employed for 

 chemical purposes. The youth deserted his master 

 to pursue his chimeras, but was brought back, and 

 incarcerated, but supplied with whatever he required ; 

 and here he transmuted rocks into a ware, more 

 valuable to his country than would have been the 

 phantasms he sought the powder of projection, and 

 the philosopher's stone, and for which he was ennobled 

 as the baron de Botscher. This is the Dresden china. 

 This invention caused a great sensation in France 

 and Prussia ; and Reaumur, oy indefatigable researches 

 into the nature of the oriental and Dresden chinas, 

 supplied that information which raised the Sevres 

 china to a degree of beauty and elegance, greatly 

 surpassing all that had been previously manufactured. 



The elegant shapes of the French china surprised 

 the British manufacturers; and moulds in brass or 

 very strong clay were made for the purpose of imi- 

 tation. But the first knowledge of the subject in 

 England was received through the medium of Ralph 

 Daniel, of Cobridge, who left his home and went to 

 Paris, where he was employed quickly as an expert 

 thrower. Here he ascertained that all the moulds 

 used in the French manufactories were of plaster of 

 Paris, and his information caused the practice to be 

 adopted by the English potters. 



Mr William Littler, about 1750, commenced 

 making a semi-transparent ware, which he called 

 china ; and, in accomplishing his purpose, he ex- 

 pended his patrimony, the Brownhills estate, Burs- 

 lem. But his productions are every way very dif- 

 ferent from the china which, about the same date, 

 was made at Derby by the ingenious Mr Dewsbury, 

 and which now continues in considerable demand. 

 At Worcester, also, china of a very superior quality 

 is manufactured, without other aid than the genius 

 and enterprise of the proprietors. And, hi more re- 

 cent times, the china made at Coulport, Salop, lias 

 obtained much celebrity. 



The combination of different clays with metallic 

 oxides, iron, manganese, and lead, by Thomas Whiel- 

 don of Fenton, and others, produced tortoise-shell 

 ware, and imitations of agate for knife-hafts, and 

 snuff-boxes ; and here Josian Wedgewood made his 

 first essays at improving the manufacture. But, pre- 

 viously, 



Thomas and John Wedgewood, of Burslem, car- 

 ried forward the manufacture of white stoneware, 

 salt-glazed, and formed into a great variety of orna- 

 mented utensils, to such an extent, as to realise a 

 very large fortune for their descendents ; and when 

 they retired from business, they transferred it to the 

 person who had married their niece, Josiah Wedge- 

 wood, who afterwards obtained so much celebrity 

 for his improvements in the arts, and of whom an 

 ample biographical notice will be given under the 

 head, Wedgewood, Josiah, Mr Aaron Wedgewood, 

 father of Thomas and John Wedgewood, and Mr 

 W. Littler, adopted a mixture of fusible materials 

 for glazing their ware, and which they applied 

 by brushes to the surface, or by immersion, wliile 

 the vessels were in the clay state; and this prac- 

 tice was becoming general, when, most opportunely, 

 Mr Enoch Boom of Tunstale, about 1750, who 

 was then making ware of a combination of the na- 



