British Manufacturing Industries: Pottery, Glass and Silicates, Furniture and Woodwork.Arnoux, Léon
History
British Manufacturing Industries: Pottery, Glass and Silicates, Furniture and Woodwork.
Arnoux, Léon
Manufacturing industries -- Great Britain
Most pieces of Cookworthy manufacture were copied from the Chinese,
and are still well known by the name of Plymouth porcelain. At
Bristol, Champion used the same clay to produce a softer kind of ware,
and his materials began to be employed at Bow and other places. The
Staffordshire potters soon became anxious to take advantage of the
discovery, and in 1777 a company was formed by Jacob Warburton to
obtain a licence for their use. This was granted by Champion, but with
this singular restriction--that, although they were allowed to use a
certain quantity of china clay and china stone, they were not to make
porcelain. This restriction, however, did not last long, and Champion
himself came for a short time to Shelton to superintend some works.
Amongst the names of Warburton's associates, we notice some well known
in Staffordshire, such as S. Hollins, of Shelton; Antony Keeling, of
Tunstall; Turner, of Lane End, and a few others. To these gentlemen we
must give credit for the earliest attempts to introduce the
manufacture of china into the Potteries. However, their porcelain was
inferior to that made at Worcester and Derby, and it is doubtful
whether they would have persisted, if the matter had not been settled
by Josiah Spode, the second of that name, who, by adding calcined
bones to the body of the ware, made a new kind of porcelain, distinct
from the hard or the soft previously made. On that account Spode
deserves to be considered as the creator of the English porcelain.
There is this peculiarity in the use of bones, that the phosphate of
lime which enters into their composition is not decomposed by the
silicates with which it is mixed, and, as it is infusible, its
admixture in the body allows the ware to stand without injury the
temperature at which the felspar is vitrified. This hardening of the
bones does not exclude a certain amount of transparency, and they
possess, besides, a very great advantage in preventing the oxides of
iron which exist in the clays, producing that brownish or imperfect
transparency, noticeable in the old Derby or Worcester ware. I have
already said that the adaptation of the glaze for each kind of pottery
is one of the greatest difficulties that the maker has to overcome; in
this case, however, there was very little, and the glazing of English
porcelain may be considered as exceptionally easy. Most of the glazes
which had been used for the soft porcelain could be adapted to this
one, a property which was of great service when the pieces had to be
decorated. I have already explained, that when paintings executed on
the surface of the ware are submitted to a moderate red heat, if the
glaze is soft enough to undergo an incipient fusion, the vitreous
colours with which they are executed will sink into it and attain, by
their incorporation, an amount of glossiness and brilliancy which
cannot be got on the surface of hard glazes. This is particularly
illustrated by the old SA"vres ware, which possesses this quality in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account