INDUSTRIES 



have been destroyed on the occasion of Napo- 

 leon's invasion of Holland. About 1803 or 

 1804 the works were closed, the stock was dis- 

 posed of by auction, and some of the best 

 workmen went to Worcester. 1 



The connexion of Lowestoft with the pro- 

 duction of china did not, however, cease 

 altogether for a number of years after this. 

 Mr. Robert Allen, who had from his boyhood 

 been employed in the factory, at first as a painter 

 in blue, then as a foreman under Mr. Browne, 

 and finally as manager of the works, opened a 

 shop at Lowestoft as stationer and china dealer, 

 and having erected a small kiln in his garden, 

 decorated Wedgwood, Turner, and other Stafford- 

 shire ware, thus giving rise to an impression that 

 earthenware was made at Lowestoft, which was 

 apparently never the case. He even seems to 

 have bought Oriental china already decorated and 

 to have marked it with his name. This at any 

 rate is the explanation now given of the fact that 

 a teapot in the Schreiber collection in the South 

 Kensington Museum, painted with a Cruci- 

 fixion, is inscribed ' Allen Lowestoft ' in red 

 underneath. The painting is obviously Chinese. 

 Mr. Allen painted a window for the parish 

 church with this subject, and this fact, together 

 with the inscription, led to the supposition that 

 he had decorated the teapot. He died in 1832, 

 aged 91. 



The best known collection of Lowestoft china, 

 that of Mr. W. R. Seago, who purchased it from 

 Mr. R. Browne, the great-grandson of one of the 

 original partners, was offered for sale in 1873, 

 but 1 60 specimens which were reserved were 

 ultimately acquired by Mr. F. A. Crisp, of 

 Godalming. 3 



The facts so far given as to the history of the 

 Lowestoft china manufacture are not subject to 

 much dispute. But for the last fifty years a 

 lively controversy has been carried on as to the 

 kind of china actually produced at the Lowestoft 

 factory. The issue turns on the distinction 

 between hard paste or Oriental china and soft 

 paste which is strictly speaking an imitation of 

 this. The secret of hard paste or true porcelain, 

 long zealously preserved in the east, was dis- 

 covered by the celebrated chemist Reaumur, in 

 1727, to lie in its composition as 



3. semi-vitrified compound, in which one portion 

 remains infusible at the greatest heat to which it can 

 be exposed, whilst the other portion vitrifies at that 



1 Chaffers, op. cit. 808-9. 



1 Besides Robert Allen, the other artists connected 

 -with the Lowestoft factory whose names have been 

 preserved are Richard Powles, who transferred 10 

 china a view he had taken of the lighthouse hill, 

 Thomas Rose, said to be a French refugee, Thomas 

 Curtis, John Sparham, John Ely, John, James and 

 Margaret Redgrave, James Balls, James Mollershead, 

 Mrs. and Miss Stevenson, Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. 

 Cooper ; Chaffers, op. cit. 81921. 



heat and enveloping the infusible part, produces that 

 smooth, compact, and shining texture as well as trans- 

 parency which are distinctive of true porcelain. 1 



In soft paste, which would fuse at this great heat, 

 the glaze is separately applied after the body has 

 been once baked, and then the china is fired 

 again. The first European manufacture of hard 

 paste was at Dresden, where Boettcher dis- 

 covered the secret, and found at the same time 

 a supply of the necessary kaolin in 1711. Later 

 on it was made at Berlin, and at Sevres in 1761.* 

 The first discoverer in England was William 

 Cookworthy, who, having found the right ma- 

 terials in Cornwall, took out a patent in 1768, 

 the rights of which, after some unsuccessful 

 manufacturing at Plymouth, were transferred to 

 Richard Champion of Bristol in 1774.' In 

 the meantime great quantities of soft-paste china 

 were being made in England, and the celebrated 

 products of Chelsea, Bow, and Worcester are all 

 of them varieties of soft paste. 



The dispute about Lowestoft china arose from 

 the fact that many East Anglian families possess 

 services of hard-paste china decorated with 

 armorial bearings or other designs evidently made 

 to order, and that tradition in some cases vaguely, 

 in other cases definitely and positively connected 

 this china with the Lowestoft works. This led 

 the late Mr. Chaffers in his Marks and Mono- 

 grams, which is still a leading authority on pottery 

 and porcelain, to take the view that after making 

 soft-paste porcelain for about twenty years, 

 Messrs. Browne discovered a method of manu- 

 facturing hard paste in close imitation of Oriental 

 china. It was, he says 



of very thick substance, but finely glazed, with 

 every variety of decoration ; dinner and tea services, 

 punch-bowls, mugs, etc. ; the borders of these are 

 sometimes a rich cobalt blue with small gold stars. 

 A raised pattern of vine leaves, grapes, squirrels, and 

 flowers is very characteristic of the Lowestoft hard 

 porcelain on jars and beakers, enclosing Chinese 

 figures and landscapes which are evidently painted by 

 European artists ; the enamel colours are not so 

 brilliant as the Chinese ; vases of flowers in red, 

 marone, purple and gold with red and gold, dragon 

 handles, etc. etc. 6 



Great weight was attached to the opinion of 

 Mr. Chaffers, and a large quantity of hard-paste 

 china has been attributed by collectors to Lowes- 

 toft on the strength of it. But objections were 

 soon raised to this theory. The body of much 

 of the china attributed to Lowestoft was so 

 obviously Oriental that as early as 1863 Mr. LI. 

 Jewitt was led to suggest that the best productions 

 of the Lowestoft works were only painted there 



1 ' Porcelain and Glass Manufacture ' in Lardner'i 

 Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1832), II. 



* Chaffers, op. cit. 483, 505, 582. 



* Ibid. 834-50. 

 8 Ibid. 807-8. 



279 



