INDUSTRIES 



are stained glass makers, writers and gilders 

 on glass, glass embossers and glass brilliant 

 cutters. Another firm engaged in the busi- 

 ness of glass staining and embossing is that of 

 Messrs. Jones & Firmin of 120 Blackfriars 

 Road. There are too, several firms which 



carry out one or more of the subsequent pro- 

 cesses to which the manufactured article may 

 be submitted, and thus help in a greater or 

 less degree to keep alive an industry whose 

 existence is one of the earliest recorded in the 

 county. 



BATTERSEA ENAMELS 



An industry which enjoyed but a brief 

 existence in the county, but resulted in the 

 production of a special class of objects of art 

 well known to collectors of the present day, 

 was the manufacture of enamels at Battersea. 

 This manufacture was established by Sir 

 Stephen Theodore Jansen about the year 

 1750 at York House, which had formerly 

 been for some period during the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries a residence of the Arch- 

 bishops of York, and was on the site now 

 occupied by Price's Candle Works.' Jansen 

 was a stationer in St. Paul's Churchyard and 

 became Lord Mayor of London in 1754. 

 The distinctive feature of the art was that the 

 designs were first engraved on copper plates 

 and printed on paper, from which they were 

 transferred to the surface of the enamel. 

 Rouquet, whose State of the Arts in England 

 was translated and printed in 1755, says, 

 after speaking of the manufacture of porcelain 

 at Chelsea : ' not for from hence they have 

 lately erected another manufacture, where 

 they paint some of their work in brooches by 

 a kind of stamp.' He then proceeds to de- 

 scribe a similar process which he had himself 

 some time before essayed to apply to porce- 

 lain. Having engraved his copper plate he 

 covered it with a substance consisting of the 

 cabc or lime of certain metals mixed with a 

 small quantity of proper glass. The impres- 

 sion was then made on paper and the printed 

 side of this was applied to the porcelain which 

 had been previously rubbed with thick oil of 

 turpentine. The paper was then removed 

 and the work put to the fire. * This method,' 

 he adds, * of painting or printing porcelain 

 might admit of more than one colour, with- 

 out being confined to the brooch.' 



At the Battersea establishment Simon 

 Francis Ravenet was employed to engrave the 

 plates. He was a Frenchman who is said to 

 have been born in Paris in 1706 and to have 

 settled in London in 1750. He resided for 

 some time in Lambeth Marsh, but died in 

 1774 at a house in Tottenham Court Road 

 and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard." 



His work is characterized by great refine- 

 ment, which serves to distinguish it from 

 that of his contemporaries, the Liverpool 

 printers, Messrs. Sadler & Green, for whom 

 has been claimed the invention of the art of 

 transfer printing from copper plates on porce- 

 lain.* R.avenet's apprentice was John Hall. 



Horace Walpole, in a letter to Bentley of 

 18 September 1755, says : 'I shall send you 

 too a trifling snufF box, only as a sample of 

 the new manufacture of Battersea, which is 

 done from copper-plates.' Dated specimens 

 however of boxes in Battersea enamel of the 

 years 1753 and 1754 are known to exist, 

 and in August 1754 Dr. Richard Pococke 

 writes that he went from London to see the 

 china and enamel manufactory at York House, 

 Battersea.* Later in his description of Straw- 

 berry Hill, Walpole enumerates amongst his 

 specimens ' a kingfisher and duck of the 

 Battersea enamel. It was a manufacture 

 stamped with a copperplate supported by 

 Alderman Jansen but failed.' The specimens 

 thus described by Walpole were painted, says 

 Mr. Binns, 'in the colors of their natural 

 plumage with admirable effect and precision'; 

 and the same writer adds : * not only was the 

 printing done in different colours, but a num- 

 ber of devices, portraits, and arms were printed 

 in gold with very good effect, and for excel- 

 lence of workmanship they are entitled to 

 the highest commendation.' 



Jansen was gazetted a bankrupt in January 

 1756, and in the Public Advertiser appears 

 the advertisement for the sale by auction of 

 his property on 2 February 1756. After 

 enumerating his household furniture and other 

 effects at his house in St. Paul's Churchyard, 

 the advertisement proceeds : * also a quantity 

 of beautiful enamels, coloured and uncoloured, 



1 E. Hammond, Bygone Battersea, 20. 



2 Thomas' Allen, Hist, of Lambeth, 303. 



3 An affidavit made by John Sadler and Guy 

 Green in the year 1756 states that they had been 

 upwards of seven years in finding out the method 

 of printing tiles and in making experiments for 

 that purpose. This would date back the discovery 

 of the method to 1749 and confirm the Liverpool 

 printers' claim to the invention. 



i Dr. Pococke's Travels through England (ed. 

 Camden Soc. N.S. xliv.), ii- 69. 



305 39 



