About this time Dr. Johnson was busying himself in experimentalising in compositions for the manufacture of porcelain, and an interesting account of his progress at Chelsea, as given from the lips of the foreman of the works, is preserved by Faulkener. He says, in his “History of Chelsea:”-- “Mr. H. Stephens was told by the foreman of the Chelsea China Manufactory (then in the workhouse of St. Luke’s, Middlesex), that Dr. Johnson had conceived a notion that he was capable of improving on the manufacture. He even applied to the directors of the Chelsea China Works, and was allowed to bake his compositions in their ovens in Lawrence Street, Chelsea. He was accordingly accustomed to go down with his housekeeper about twice a week, and stayed the whole day, she carrying a basket of provisions with her. The Doctor, who was not allowed to enter the mixing-room, had access to every other part of the house, and formed his composition in a particular apartment, without being overlooked by anyone. He had also free access to the oven, and superintended the whole process, but completely failed, both as to composition and baking, for his materials always yielded to the intensity of the heat, while those of the Company came out of the furnace perfect and complete. The Doctor retired in disgust, though not in despair, for he afterwards gave a dissertation on this very subject in his works; but the overseer (he was still living in the spring of 1814) assured Mr. Stephens that he (the overseer) was still ignorant of the nature of the operation. He seemed to think that the Doctor imagined one single substance was sufficient, while he, on the other hand, asserted that he always used sixteen; and he must have had some practice, as he had nearly lost his eyesight by firing batches of china, both at Chelsea and at Derby, to which the manufacture was afterwards carried.” Dr. Johnson certainly took much interest in the manufacture of porcelain, and after the discontinuance of the Chelsea works visited those at Derby. He does not, however, seem to have carried his researches on to any practical result. In 1769 Mr. William Duesbury, the proprietor of the famous Derby China Works, became the purchaser of the Chelsea works, and for many years carried on the two establishments conjointly. The Derby works had at that time attained to a high degree of excellence and of celebrity, and Mr. Duesbury (who became the purchaser, not only of the Chelsea works, but those of Bow, Giles’s, Pedlar’s Acre, &c.) was doing more trade than was done at any other establishment in the kingdom. He had opened an extensive connection with London, and was rapidly increasing his concern, both in that and other markets, and had become more than a successful rivaller of the excellence of the Chelsea wares.