In 1804 the company consisted of Cuthbert Johnson, William Clarke, John Wootton, and John Rose. In 1811 it was John Rose, William Clarke and Charles Maddison. In 1820 they bought the famous Swansea works and entered into an agreement with Messrs. Billingsley and Walker to make a superior kind of porcelain made by them, first at Nantgarw in Glamorganshire, and afterwards at the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea, in the same county. This was a pure soft paste porcelain, superior to any at present produced in the kingdom, and second only to the famous _pate tendre_ of Sevres at the very best period of its manufacture. This china was first made in 1813 by Billingsley, who went from Derby to Worcester, and from there to South Wales. He was an artist, and understood the manufacture in all its branches. He produced a fret body, by mixing the materials, firing them in order to blend them together, then reducing the vitrified substance into clay—a process which was carried on at Old Sevres during the reign of Louis XV.—and thereby produced an article fine in texture, beautifully transparent, and of a delicate waxy hue, very superior to the dingy blue tinge given to much of the best china of that day. Connoisseurs were at once attracted by it, and Mr. Mortlock went down and entered into an engagement to purchase all that Billingsley and his son-in-law could make. Mr. John Rose finding he had lost a customer, whilst orders he was wont to receive were going to South Wales, went over, bought the plant, moulds, and everything, and entered into an agreement with Walker and Billingsley for a period of seven years to make the same quality of china at Coalport. The process however was an expensive one, from the difficulty of working the clay, which wanted plasticity, and also from the loss in the burning, as being a soft body it was apt to melt or warp, and to go out of shape, if it had a little too much fire in the biscuit kiln. About that time, too, Mr. Ryan discovered a very pure felspar in the Middleton, one of the Briedden hills, the true _Kaolin_, to which the Chinese were indebted for the quality of their egg-shell and other first class china. The fret body was therefore abandoned, the _pate tendre_ for a _pate dure_, as the French say, and by adding pure felspar to the Cornish stone and clay which contains a large percentage, a good transparent body was obtained at a less cost than by using a _fret body_. About this time also the Society of Arts offered a prize to any one who should find a substitute for lead in the glaze, the deleterious effects of which told upon the dippers, and produced paralysis; and Mr. Rose by applying felspar to the glaze succeeded in obtaining it. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society; and from that time following, for some years, a badge was either attached to the ware or engraved upon it as follows:—“Coalport Felspar Porcelain, J. Rose & Co: the Gold Medal awarded May 30, 1820; Patronised