In fact, the little factory has provided a considerable field for speculation as to what it did and what it did not produce. For so small a factory there is quite a literature in magazine articles, and one volume has been written upon it. The factory started about 1765, and closed down in 1802. When it closed its kilns and heaps of shards were hurriedly buried, it extinguished the hope of an art that promised to be greater. The abandonment of an art industry always breaks some hearts. There is just one fleeting glimpse of one of the old painters when teacups and roses were no longer wanted. Perhaps some of our readers will look under the rose and read a story, sad enough, but true of many a craftsman at the end of the day. One old artist who, by your leave, ladies, painted red roses and twined chains of rosy wreaths, who put smiles and sunshine with his artful brush on to your tea services, had a very aching heart at the end of the journey. Fate herself twined a chain of grey roses for him. He was blind and poor. In his old age, he laboured, a broken-down old man, in the heat of the sun. A couple of donkeys given to him out of charity enabled him to bring water into Lowestoft. A beggar, he would slake a beggar’s thirst. “Wreaths of roses”—there is something gruesome in the sound of the words. Handle your china cups with more tenderness: human lives have gone to the making of them. The white-hot furnace and the minute brush-mark of your rose petal turned a man’s day to dark night. Roses and wreaths of roses, and behind them all—tears. [Illustration: RARE LOWESTOFT COFFEE-POT. Decoration in Oriental style in blue. _In the possession of Mr. Merrington Smith, Lowestoft._] The writer is able to confirm the above statements respecting Lowestoft by information which has been courteously supplied by a kinswoman of the celebrated designer of the bouquets of roses on the Lowestoft porcelain. The first clay was discovered by Mr. Luson of Gunter Hall in 1756 (now the estate of Miss Fowler), who sent a small quantity to London to ascertain its quality. Upon trial it was found to be excellent, and Mr. Hewlin Luson procured workmen and erected a temporary kiln on his estate near the old Warren Houses on the Dunes north of Lowestoft. A good deal of jealousy was aroused and trade rivals attempted to wreck the scheme and tampered with the workmen engaged. After a year’s struggle a company was formed who purchased some houses in Bell Lane, now Crown Street, and established a factory.