LONGTON HALL.--It has lately been recognised that porcelain was made in the Staffordshire potteries, probably as early as the middle of the century.[230] This was at Longton Hall, in the borough of Stoke-upon-Trent. From an advertisement in a Birmingham paper (July 27, 1752) we learn that W. Littler and Co. were ready to supply ‘a great variety of ornamental porcelain in the most fashionable and genteel taste.’ It was Mr. Nightingale, I think, who first traced certain pieces of china, marked with two L’s crossed (PL. E. 81), to Littler’s factory. This porcelain had previously been attributed to Bow. The Longton Hall ware has no claim to any artistic merit. A crude blue is the prevailing ground colour, and the contorted shapes copy rudely the rococo of Sprimont’s Chelsea ware. The mouldings on the dishes and plates often take the form of leaves. Some of this porcelain is exceptionally thin compared with other English wares of this comparatively early period. The flower-painting on the reserved panels of the plates should, however, be noticed. The carefully executed bunches of roses, somewhat realistically treated, are perhaps the earliest specimens of a style very prevalent at a later time in England, one which found its most famous exponent in Billingsley’s work at Nantgarw and elsewhere. William Duesbury, a native of the district, was working at Longton Hall early in the fifties as a painter in enamel. Nothing is known of this factory after the year 1758.[231] There is some reason to believe that it fell into the hands of Duesbury, but this is a disputed question. Professor Church has analysed several specimens of the Longton Hall china. It contains no bone-ash, and is in composition very close to the early Chelsea ware. CHAPTER XXI ENGLISH PORCELAIN--(_continued_). THE SOFT PASTE OF DERBY, WORCESTER, CAUGHLEY, COALPORT, SWANSEA, NANTGARW, LOWESTOFT, LIVERPOOL, PINXTON, ROCKINGHAM, CHURCH GRESLEY, SPODE, AND BELLEEK. Derby.--Porcelain of some kind was probably made at Derby not much later than the date of the first establishment of Frye’s works at Bow. Mr. Bemrose quotes entries from the work-book of Duesbury, which show that during the years 1751-53 he was busy enamelling the products not only of the ‘Chellsea and Bogh’ kilns, but that, although resident in London, he received work from Derby also. Indeed the price, eight shillings, that he got for enamelling ‘one pair of Darby figars large,’ is higher than his usual charge for painting the Chelsea statuettes (_Bow, Chelsea, and Derby Porcelain_).[232]