INDUSTRIES 



(in 1878) considerably superseded the brown 

 stoneware. Its quality was good and ex- 

 tremely hard. Thirdly, buiF terra-cotta for 

 garden vases, pedestals, chimney-pots, window- 

 arches, etc. Being thoroughly vitrified this 

 terra-cotta was invaluable for the manufacture 

 of durable key-stones, string-courses, springers, 

 and other architectural purposes. Fourthly, 

 porous ware for the manufacture of tele- 

 graphic and philosophical instruments. 



Messrs. Stiff & Sons employed in their 

 pottery at this date about two hundred hands, 

 and their annual consumption of coals and 

 raw materials was about 15,000 tons.^ At 

 the present day they are makers of drain 

 pipes and other sanitary appliances in stone- 

 ware, for which they are one of the largest 

 and best known firms about London. 



Coades Artificial Stone Works. — These 

 works were singled out by the county his- 

 torians of the early nineteenth century as 

 worthy of special notice, and must then have 

 enjoyed a particular importance.^ They 

 were established about the year 1760 by Mrs. 

 or the Misses Coade at Pedlar's Acre, King's 

 Arms Stairs, opposite Whitehall Stairs. 

 Lysons and Manning and Bray refer to the 

 peculiar frost-resisting property of the com- 

 position made in them, and say that it was 

 designed to answer every purpose of stone for 

 ornamental architecture. Pennant about the 

 end of the eighteenth or beginning of the 

 nineteenth century writes of this material that 

 the inventor had been able to ward off the 

 attacks of time but not of envy, and relates 

 that a beautiful font, then the ornament of 

 Dibden church in Essex and formed on a 

 most admirable antique model, had been 

 denied to the public eye in a place where 

 liberality ought to have enjoyed the freest 

 reign.^ 



The works were originally founded as 

 ' Coade's Lithodipyra Terra-cotta or Artificial 

 Stone Manufactory.' The Misses Coade are 

 supposed to have come from Lyme Regis, co. 

 Dorset, and to have used the clay of their 

 native place in their works. In 1769 they 

 took into partnership their cousin Mr. Sealy, 

 and the firm became Coades & Sealy, and 

 was so known in 1 8 1 1 . On the death of 

 Mr. Sealy, who survived his cousins, the 

 works were continued for some years by Mr. 

 Croggan, who had formerly been a clerk or 

 manager in them. By him the business was 

 disposed of to Messrs. Routledge, Greenwood 



' Jewett, op. cit. i. 141 seq. 



a Lysons, Environs of London (ed. 2), i. 228 ; 

 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, iii. 467. 



3 Thomas Pennant, Some Account of London, West- 

 minster and Southxvark (n.d.), i. 29. 



& Keene, who were succeeded by Messrs. 

 Routledge & Lucas. On the dissolution of 

 this latter partnership about the year 1840 

 the whole stock in trade was sold by auction. 

 Mr. H. M. Blanchard of Blackfriars Road, 

 who had been an apprentice in this factory, 

 was the purchaser of a large quantity of the 

 models and moulds then sold, and in the year 

 1878 he claimed to be the Coades' successor. 



The Coades were fortunate enough to 

 secure amongst their modellers the services of 

 several well known sculptors. In the names 

 of these are included those of John Bacon, 

 Flaxman, Banks, Rossi, and Panzetta. Wil- 

 liam John Coffee, who afterwards acquired 

 some fame as a modeller at the Derby China 

 Works, seems to have been employed here as 

 a fireman. He was probably the fireman 

 from whom were obtained the particulars of 

 these works in 1790, which are given in a 

 letter that came into Mr. Jewett's possession 

 and was printed by him in his Ceramic Art 

 in Great Britain. We are told that there 

 were at that time in the Coades' factory three 

 kilns, the largest being 9 feet in diameter and 

 about 10 feet high. A kiln was fired always 

 for four days and four nights, and the moment 

 the goods were fired up the fireman stopped 

 the kilns ' entirely close from any air what- 

 ever' without lowering the fires. He had 

 been used to fire entirely with coal, and never 

 used a thermometer but depended upon his 

 own knowledge. The composition shrank 

 about half an inch in a foot in the drying and 

 about the same in the firing. 



Amongst the many objects executed at 

 these works and applied for the external 

 decoration of mansions and public buildings 

 may be noticed the bas-relief over the western 

 portico of Greenwich Hospital representing 

 the death of Nelson designed by Benjamin 

 West and modelled by Bacon and Panzetta, 

 the rood screen of St. George's Chapel, 

 Windsor, and the statue of Britannia on the 

 Nelson monument at Yarmouth.* 



Imperial Pottery. — This appears to have 

 been established between the years 1790 and 

 1 800 by a Mr. Green. He is no doubt the 

 Green whom Lysons mentions as the owner 

 of a pottery at Lambeth in 181 1. The 

 pottery was situated in Prince's Street, and in 

 1850 was carried on by the founder's son, 

 Mr. Stephen Green. The works seem to 

 have been nearly destroyed by fire shortly 

 before 1858, when they were purchased of 

 Messrs. Green & Co. by Mr. John Cliff. 

 Mr. Cliff, who considerably enlarged the 

 works, introduced into them several patented 



4 Jewett, op. cit. i. «38 seq. 



287 



