LIVERPOOL WARE It is the hope of the writer of these “Chats” that Worcester and Derby, Bristol and Plymouth, Bow and Chelsea have become something more than mere names to the readers who have followed our journeyings. The china-shelf has been shown to hold the monuments of men’s lives. Behind the delicate pencillings and the shower of rose-leaves lies many a tragic story. Liverpool and its ware is not the least of the great landmarks in the history of English ceramic art. In entering on the threshold of the history of Liverpool, and of the printed ware stated to have been first produced there, we find ourselves in the midst of a controversy. If discussions upon points of china-collecting were waged physically, the opponents in their heat would have demolished each other long ago with their own china collections, but luckily, they have confined themselves to hurling opinions and nothing more tangible. Philosophically, they have agreed to differ, and have parted good friends, to renew the argument another day, or they have each gone to his last home and the echoes of the conflict have come down to us, and fresh battles are fought over the theories of dead collectors. Up till quite recently a wordy war was being waged over Lowestoft, and the laurels of that much-disputed factory were in great danger of being snatched away. To John Sadler, of Liverpool, is generally ascribed the honour of having discovered the useful art of printing on pottery from copper-plate engravings. He was the son of Adam Sadler, a printer, in Liverpool, who had formerly served as a soldier under the Duke of Marlborough in the wars in the Low Countries. John Sadler carried on the business of an engraver in Harrington Street, and having noticed that some of his waste prints were used by children to stick on to fragments of earthenware obtained from the potteries, he commenced experiments with a view of extending this application to the purposes of decoration. He associated himself about the year 1750 with Guy Green, who had succeeded to the printing business of Adam Sadler. The secret of the manner in which an engraving was transferred from a copper-plate to the rounded surface of a bowl or a teapot, was well kept, but it was fairly obvious that in some way or another the design was transferred to paper and then retransferred to the china object to be decorated. Sadler and Green, after working at the discovery, applied for a patent. The value of the invention can best be understood by the following affidavit made by John Sadler and Guy Green, in 1756.