A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



which the first chinaware made in England 

 was produced, and therefore the "Fulham 

 china" of to-day has an historical interest 

 attached to it which is possessed by no other.' 

 The business has since passed into other hands 

 and is now the property of the Fulham Pottery 

 and Cheavin Filter Company, Limited. 



A factory of stoneware, galley-pots, mugs, 

 pans, dishes, &c., was carried on by James Ruel 

 at Sandford House, Sand End, King's Road, 

 Fulham. The undertaking proved unsuccess- 

 ful, and in 1798 the factory and stock in trade 

 were advertised for sale by auction by order 

 of the sheriff, but were disposed of previously 

 by private contract. 



The pottery of William de Morgan & Co. 

 )ias since 1888 been carried on at Fulham. 

 The business was started in 1870 by Mr. 

 William de Morgan, who began by decorating 

 tiles and pots in Fitzroy Square. Removing 

 afterwards to Chelsea, he continued to paint 

 Dutch pottery, and that made by Stiff & Co. 

 of Lambeth and by Staffordshire potters ; 

 whilst at Chelsea he built an oven, and en- 

 gaged in the practical business of a potter. 

 On removing to Fulham in 1888, he entered 

 into partnership with Mr. Halsey Ricardo, a 

 new pottery was built, and the wares stamped 

 ' W. de Morgan & Co., Sands End Pottery, 

 Fulham, S.W.,' and with a small floral device 

 surmounted with the initials DM. The out- 

 put of this firm also includes lustre ware, an 

 imitation of the Hispano-Moresco work of the 

 1 5th and i6th centuries, and pottery decorated 

 in the Persian style and with Dutch scenes. 



At Southall is a small pottery carried on by 

 the four brothers Martin, with an office in 

 Brownlow Street, Holborn, for the sale of 

 their wares. 31 The founder of the firm was 

 Robert Wallace Martin, a Royal Academy 

 student, and pupil of Alexander Munro the 

 sculptor, who revived in this country the 

 glazed stoneware of the i6th and 171)1 cen- 

 turies. After an unsuccessful co-operation 

 with Mr. Bailey, who was then proprietor of 

 the Fulham Pottery, Martin entered into 

 oartnership in the early seventies with his 

 three brothers, Charles Douglas, Walter 

 Fraser, and Edwin Bruce. This ware, which 

 is greatly appreciated by connoisseurs, is the 

 outcome of a long series of experiments with 

 clays and colours and methods of firing them. 

 A special feature with the makers is that the 

 decoration of a specimen is never repeated, so 

 that each piece is in its way a unique example 

 of the handiwork of the potter. The style 

 varies greatly from the classical to the gro- 



" Chaffers, Marks and Monograms (ed. 9, revised 

 by Frederick Litchfield, 1900), 882-3. 



tesque, and the colouring is frequently as 

 original as the decoration, which is incised, 

 modelled, or carved. The mark consists of 

 the name and address of the firm, with the 

 month and year of production, incised in 

 cursive lettering. 



BOW PORCELAIN 



The origin of the porcelain manufacture at 

 Bow is very obscure. The first reliable notice 

 of it is the patent l applied for on 6 December 

 1 744 by ' Edward Heylin in the parish of Bow 

 in the county of Middlesex, merchant, and 

 Thomas Frye of the parish of West Ham in the 

 county of Essex, painter.' The specification, 

 enrolled 5 April 1745, is 'for a new method 

 of manufacturing a certain mineral, whereby 

 a ware might be made of the same nature or 

 kind, and equal to, if not exceeding in good- 

 ness and beauty, china or porcelain ware 

 imported from abroad. The material is an 

 earth, the produce of the Cherokee nation in 

 America, called by the natives unaker.' The 

 specification proceeds to give a detailed account 

 of the composition of the porcelain and the 

 mode of its manufacture. It seems probable 

 that the description given was purposely vague, 

 and that porcelain was not made in any 

 quantity, if at all, under this patent ; the 

 object of the patentees may have been to pro- 

 tect the use of substances of which they 

 had no practical experience. Mr. William 

 Burton 2 gives an analysis of the ware described 

 in Heylin and Frye's patent, and arrives at 

 the conclusion that ' not only were the pro- 

 portions of Heylin and Frye entirely wrong, 

 but their "frit" 3 was useless for its supposed 

 purpose.' The Cherokee clay or ' unaker ' is 

 said to have been brought to England by a 

 traveller who recognized its similarity to the 

 ' kaolin,' or china clay, of the Chinese. Some 

 information concerning this man is given by 

 William Cookworthy of Plymouth, who after- 

 wards discovered in Cornwall the materials, 

 china stone (petuntse) and china clay (kaolin), 

 from which true porcelain is made. Writing 

 to a friend in 1745, Cookworthy says * 



I had lately with me the person who has dis- 

 covered the china earth. He had with him 

 several samples of the china ware which I think 

 were equal to the Asiatic. It was found on the 

 back of Virginia, where he was in quest of mines, 



1 W. Burton, Porcelain, 59 et seq. 



' Hist, of English Porcelain (1902), 10. 



* The glassy substance used with the clay to 

 form the paste or body of the ware. 



4 Chaffers, Marks and Monograms (ed. 9, 1900), 

 887. 



.46 



