INDUSTRIES 



the cottage industry of twenty-five years ago is 

 organized with transatlantic completeness so as 

 to secure the utmost economy both of time and 

 of labour. Within its walls there is a dining- 

 room for the employees, and close by is a creche 

 with a playground and sandhill attached, where 

 the children of married workers are looked after 

 by trained nurses. This reveals the continuity 

 with which the new system has grown out of 

 the old. The workers are nearly all women, 

 the daughters, sisters and wives of the mechanics 

 at the Orwell Works. 



The advantage secured by the old system in 



the dispersal of the industry over the country- 

 side is largely retained by the establishment of 

 branches. Messrs. Pretty have five of these in 

 Suffolk at Bury, Sudbury, Hadleigh,Stowmarket, 

 and Beccles ; and three in Norfolk at Yarmouth, 

 Diss, and Lynn. The corsets are put through 

 the earlier processes in the branch factories and 

 sent to be finished at Ipswich. The women 

 and girls employed by this firm number nearly 

 1,200, about half of them being at Ipswich. 2 

 The workers employed by another Ipswich 

 maker the Atlas Corset Co. make up about 

 another hundred. 



LOWESTOFT CHINA 



It is probable that the manufacture of china, 

 which was carried on during the latter half of 

 the eighteenth century in Lowestoft, owes its 

 origin to that constant intercourse with Holland 

 which has exercised so wide an influence on the 

 industrial history of the eastern counties. The 

 Delft ware, the universal vogue of which was 

 just then beginning to be challenged by the 

 inventive genius and enterprise of the famous 

 English potters, must have been brought in con- 

 siderable quantities to Lowestoft, and the Dutch 

 trader can hardly have failed to be on the look- 

 out for suitable material at a spot so convenient 

 for cheap transport to Holland. There is, in 

 fact, a story recorded of a Dutchman, shipwrecked 

 on the coast of Norfolk towards the middle of 

 the seventeenth century, pointing out to the 

 gentleman who had befriended him a valuable 

 bed of clay on his estate, which he told him was 

 of the same kind as that 



sold at extravagant rates to the makers of Delftware 

 and fine earthen vessels, being brought down the Rhine 

 out of some place in Germany and very much coveted 

 in all parts of Holland. The gentleman . . . sent 

 over a sample, and finding the sailor's account to be 

 true, he opened the vein and dug up such a quantity 

 as brought him in a profit in eighteen months' time 

 of 1 0,000. But the stock was exhausted, and he 

 could never find any more in his lands. . . . ' 



The first dated specimens of pottery attributed 

 to Lowestoft are of the Delft species. They 

 belong to the years 1752-9, and as the china 

 factory was not started till 1757, it is probable 

 that there had been an earlier manufacture of 

 earthenware in the town, though it is possible 

 that the Dutch pottery may have been merely 

 painted in Lowestoft to suit the local demand. 

 The account given by Gillingwater of the dis- 

 covery or rediscovery of the clay beds affiliated 



1 Essays for December, lj\6,by a Society of Gentlemen. 

 Quoted in W. Chaffers' Marks and Monograms (1897), 

 805. Mr. Spelman has traced this story back through 

 Fuller's Worthies of England (1662) to S. Hartllb His 

 Legacie Ci65l) ; Lowes toft China, 2. 



the manufacture to that of Chelsea, which itself 

 owed much to Dutch immigrants. ' In the 

 year 1756,' says Gillingwater, 



Hewlin Luson, Esq. of Gunton Hall, near Lowes- 

 toft, having discovered some fine clay or earth on his 

 estate in that parish, sent a small quantity of it to 

 one of the china manufactories near London with a 

 view of discovering what kind of ware it was capable 

 of producing, which upon trial proved to be finer 

 than that called the Delft ware. . . . He immediately 

 procured some workmen from London and erected 

 upon his estate at Gunton a temporary kiln and 

 furnace and all the other apparatus necessary for the 

 undertaking ; but the manufacturers in London being 

 apprised of his intentions, ... so far tampered with 

 the workmen he had procured that they spoiled the 

 ware and thereby frustrated Mr. Luson's design. 3 



The following year a more successful start 

 was made at Lowestoft by the firm which, so far 

 as is known, were the sole producers of Lowes- 

 toft china from that time till the disappearance 

 of the industry in 1803. The partners who 

 then or soon after joined the venture were 

 apparently all of them strangers to the potter's 

 art, and each of them approached the enterprise 

 from a somewhat different point of view. The 

 full title of the firm was Messrs. Walker, Browne, 

 Aldred & Rickman. Mr. Philip Walker was 

 a local gentleman whose name afterwards appears 

 in the list of subscribers to Gillingwater's 

 History of Lowestoft. Mr. Obed Aldred is 

 described as a bricklayer, i.e. a master builder, 

 and may have been, as builders not infrequently 

 were, a maker of brick. He was evidently a 

 man of some means. Mr. John Rickman was 

 a merchant in a large way. All these three had 

 more or less capital engaged in the herring and 

 mackerel fisheries of the town, and had therefore 

 means of keeping in touch with Dutch or 

 English ports. This was an important point. 

 The cheapness of water carriage on the Grand 

 Trunk Canal was an essential factor in the 



* Ex inf. Messrs. W. Pretty & Sons. 



* Chaffers, op. cit. 805. 



277 



