The “faithful city” was indebted for the establishment of its pottery to the exertions and scientific researches of Dr. John Wall, a physician of that city. The learned doctor was born at Powick, a village in Worcestershire, in the year 1708. His father was a tradesman in Worcester, of which city he served the office of mayor in 1703; he was descended from a good family in Herefordshire. Dr. Wall’s father dying while he was young, he was educated at the King’s School, Worcester, and in 1726 became a scholar at Worcester College, Oxford. Nine years later, at the age of twenty-seven, he became a fellow of Merton College. Having studied at Oxford and at St. Thomas’s Hospital, he in 1739 took his degree, and commenced practice in Worcester. He married Catherine Sandys, cousin to the first Lord Sandys. Dr. Wall, besides being a clever practitioner and an excellent chemist, was also an artist of great ability; he painted historical pictures with great judgment, and his conceptions were sometimes marked with considerable originality and grandeur. One of his principal pictures is that of the founder, &c., in the hall of Merton College, Oxford--a painting[72] he presented to that college in 1765. Of his other works, his “Brutus condemning his Sons,” “The Head of Pompey brought to Cæsar” (now at Hagley), “Regulus returning to Carthage,” “Queen Eleanor sucking the Poison from the Arm of Edward I.,” “Elijah fed by the Ravens,” “Moses striking the Rock,” “The School of Physic,” “The Shunamite’s Child restored,” and “The Head of St. John the Baptist,” are among the best. He also etched some remarkably clever plates, and designed the stained-glass window in the bishop’s private chapel at Hartlebury, the “Presentation of Christ in the Temple,” a window at Oriel College, and others. Dr. Wall was also the author of several medical works, and was eminently instrumental in bringing the Malvern waters into public notice. He was also one of the most zealous supporters of the Worcestershire Infirmary. Dr. Wall, besides his other accomplishments, was, as has already been intimated, an excellent practical chemist; his laboratory was at No. 33, Broad Street. He turned his attention more particularly to experimentalising on materials which might be used for the manufacture of porcelain; and in 1751, about a year after the establishment of the works at Derby, and while those at Chelsea and Bow were being carried on, he brought his experiments to a successful issue; the result being the discovery of a body of surpassing excellence.