A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



FULHAM STONEWARE 



It was not until the beginning of the reign 

 of Charles II that the secret of this manufac- 

 ture was discovered in England, and the credit 

 of the discovery belongs to John Dwight of 

 Fulham. Dr. Plot, writing in 1677,' says: 



The ingenious John Dwight, formerly M.A. of 

 Christ Church College, Oxon., hath discovered the 

 mystery of the Stone or Cologne wares (such as 

 D'Alva bottles, jugs, noggins) heretofore made only 

 in Germany, and by the Dutch brought over into 

 England in great quantities, and hath set up a 

 manufacture of the same, which (by methods and 

 contrivances of his own, altogether unlike those 

 used by the Germans) in three or four years' time 

 he hath brought it to a greater perfection than it 

 has attained where it hath been used for many 

 ages, insomuch that the Company of Glass-Sellers, 

 London, who are the dealers for that commodity, 

 have contracted with the inventor to buy only of 

 his English manufacture, and refuse the foreign. 



Dwight, who is said to have been a native 

 of Oxfordshire, took his Oxford degree of 

 B.C.L. in 1 66 1, and afterwards became secre- 

 tary to Bryan Walton, Bishop of Chester, and 

 his episcopal successors Henry Feme and 

 Joseph Hall. After a long series of trials 

 and experiments upon the properties of clays 

 and mineral products as materials for porcelain 

 and stoneware, he obtained, in April 1671, a 

 patent for his discoveries. 6 In his petition he 

 claimed to have ' discovered 7 the mistery of 

 transparent earthenware comonly knowne by 

 the name of porcelaine or China and Persian 

 ware, as alsoe the misterie of the Stone ware 

 vulgarly called Cologne ware.' As regards 

 his first claim, Professor Church 8 admits that 

 Dwight ' did make some approach to success 

 in producing a body which if not porcelain is 

 distinctly porcellanous.' 



Dwight's experiments and researches into 

 the properties of various clays and their proper 

 treatment for the production of china ware 

 must have extended over a considerable num- 

 ber of years before he took the patent for his 

 'discovery' in 1671. An interesting confir- 

 mation of his claim occurs in a periodical 

 work, entitled A Collection for the Improvement 

 of Husbandry and Trade, by a contemporary 

 writer, John Houghton, who was a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society. 9 He is speaking (12 January 

 1 693-4) of the tobacco-pipe clays, ' gotten at 

 or nigh Pool, a port town in Dorsetshire, and 

 there dug in square pieces, of the bigness of 

 about half a hundredweight each ; from thence 



5 Nat. Hht. Oxon. (2nd ed. 1705), 255. 



Cal.S.P.Dom. 1 67 1-2, p. 420. 7 Ibid. 335. 

 8 Engl. Earthenware (1904), 44. 



* Houghton, op. cit. iv, no. 76. 



'tis brought to London, and sold in peaceable 

 times at about eighteen shillings a ton, but 

 now in this time of war is worth about three- 

 and-twenty shillings.' He proceeds : ' This 

 sort of clay, as I hinted formerly, is used to 

 clay sugar and the best sort of mugs are made 

 with it, and the ingenious Mr. Dwight of 

 Fulham tells me that 'tis the same earth 

 China-ware is made of, and 'tis made not by 

 lying long in the earth but in the fire ; and if 

 it were worth while, we may make as good 

 China here as any is in the world. And so 

 for this time farewell clay.' In another 

 letter, 10 dated 13 March 1695-6, he writes : 



Of China-ware I see but little imported in the 

 year 1 694, I presume by reason of the war and 

 our bad luck at sea. There came only from Spain 

 certain, and from India certain twice. 'Tis a 

 curious manufacture and deserves to be encourag'd 

 here, which without doubt money would do, and 

 Mr. Dwoit of Fulham has done it, and can again 

 in anything that is flat. But the difficulty is that 

 if a hollow dish be made, it must be burnt so 

 much, that the heat of the fire will make the sides 

 fall. He tells me that our clay will very well do 

 it, the main skill is in managing the fire. By my 

 consent, the man that would bring it to perfection 

 should have for his encouragement l,ooo/. from the 

 Publick, tho' I help'd to pay a tax towards it. 



Dwight's discovery seems to have stopped short 

 at the practical point, the time and expense 

 involved in the manufacture proving totally 

 unremunerative. Mr. L. M. Solon, 11 however, 

 after a careful analysis of all the evidence, in- 

 cluding the recipes and memoranda contained 

 in two little books in Dwight's own hand, 

 concludes that he got no further than making 

 transparent specimens of his stoneware by 

 casting it thin and firing it hard. 



His claim to the discovery of the com- 

 position of stoneware is beyond question. 

 Dwight's stoneware vessels were equal if not 

 superior to those imported from Germany, 

 and very soon superseded them. A list of his 

 wares is given in the specification of his second 

 patent granted in 1684 for a further term of 

 fourteen years. This description is as follows: 

 ' Severall new manufactures of earthenwares 

 called by the names of white gorges, marbled 

 porcellane vessels, statues, and figures, and 

 fine stone gorges and vessells, never before 

 made in England or elsewhere.' 



Mr. Solon, in his work above quoted, 11 

 pays the following high tribute to Dwight's 

 skill and genius : ' To him must be attri- 

 buted the foundation of an important industry; 



10 Ibid, viii, no. 1 89. 



11 The Art of the Old English Potter (ed. 2, 

 1885), 32-5. "Ibid. 31. 



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