One of the names most intimately connected with the early history of the porcelain manufactures of this kingdom is that of William Cookworthy, to whom that art is indebted for the discovery of the two most important of its ingredients, the native kaolin and the petuntse, and to whose successful experiments and labours its excellence was and is in a great measure to be attributed. At the time when he first made his experiments--although Dwight had patented his invention for making transparent porcelain, although Van Hamme and others had also secured their rights for similar purposes, although Chelsea and other places made their china (it is said) of Chinese materials, and although many experiments had been made on the nature and properties of the earths supposed to be employed for its manufacture--the art of china-making from _native_ materials was unknown; and Cookworthy pursued his course of study unaided by the experience of others, and, though beset with difficulties at every turn, brought it to a perfectly successful and satisfactory issue. The history of these experiments, and the life of this man, are the _history_ of the Plymouth works. The one is inseparable from the other. The history of the works is the story of the life of Cookworthy, and the story of that life is the origin, the success, and the close of those works. The narrative of William Cookworthy, then, must be the thread of my present history. William Cookworthy was born at Kingsbridge, not many miles from Plymouth, on the 12th of April, 1705, his parents being William and Edith Cookworthy, who were Quakers. His father was a weaver, and died, leaving his family but ill provided for, in 1718. Thus young Cookworthy, at the age of thirteen, and with six younger brothers and sisters--for he was the eldest of the family of seven--was left fatherless. His mother entered upon her heavy task of providing for and maintaining her large family with true courage, and appears to have succeeded in working out a good position for them all. She betook herself to dressmaking, and as her little daughters grew old enough to handle the needle, they were taught to aid her, and thus she maintained them in comparative comfort. In the following spring, at the age of fourteen, young Cookworthy was apprenticed to a chemist in London, named Bevans; but his mother’s means being too scanty to admit of his being sent to the metropolis in any other way, he was compelled to walk there on foot. This task, no light one in those days, a hundred and fifty years ago, or now, for a boy of fourteen, he successfully accomplished. [Illustration: Fig. 705.--Portrait and Autograph of William Cookworthy.]