Bristol porcelain covers porcelain made in
Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...
, England by several companies in the 18th and 19th centuries. The plain term "Bristol porcelain" is most likely to refer to the factory moved from
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...
in 1770, the second Bristol factory. The product of the earliest factory is usually called Lund's Bristol ware and was made from about 1750 until 1752, when the operation was merged with
Worcester porcelain
Royal Worcester is a porcelain brand based in Worcester, England. It was established in 1751 and is believed to be the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain brand still in existence today, although this is disputed by Royal Crown De ...
; this was
soft-paste porcelain
Soft-paste porcelain (sometimes simply "soft paste", or "artificial porcelain") is a type of ceramic material in pottery, usually accepted as a type of porcelain. It is weaker than "true" hard-paste porcelain, and does not require either the hig ...
.
In 1770 the
Plymouth porcelain factory, which made England's first
hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain, sometimes "true porcelain", is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature, usually around 1400 °C. It was first made in China ...
, moved to Bristol, where it operated until 1782. This called itself the Bristol China Manufactory.
A further factory called the Water Lane Pottery made non-porcelain
earthenware
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a c ...
very successfully from about 1682 until the 1880s, and briefly made porcelain in about 1845–50.
Bristol was England's second business city after London in the mid-18th century, and a major port for the Atlantic trade. It had long been, after London and together with
Liverpool
Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...
, one of the major centres of production for English pottery, especially
tin-glazed
Tin-glazing is the process of giving tin-glazed pottery items a ceramic glaze that is white, glossy and opaque, which is normally applied to red or buff earthenware. Tin-glaze is plain lead glaze with a small amount of tin oxide added.Caiger-Smith ...
English Delftware
English delftware is tin-glazed pottery made in the British Isles between about 1550 and the late 18th century. The main centres of production were London, Bristol and Liverpool with smaller centres at Wincanton, Glasgow and Dublin. English ...
, some of which aspired to keep up with fashions in decoration such as
chinoiserie
(, ; loanword from French '' chinoiserie'', from '' chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, lite ...
. This part of the industry continued well into the 19th century, while the various porcelain producers proved short-lived. Bristol was also the largest city in the
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Glouc ...
, which includes the
Cornish sites where
china stone, an essential ingredient for hard-paste porcelain and
bone china
Bone china is a type of ceramic that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phos ...
, was discovered in the 1740s.
Lund's Bristol
Benjamin Lund was a Bristol
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
whose main business was as a
brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wi ...
-founder. On 7 March 1748/9 he was granted a license for "soaprock", perhaps indicating the start of his porcelain operation. A letter of a Dr Richard Pococke from 1750 reports being shown near
Lizard Point, Cornwall
Lizard Point () in Cornwall is at the southern tip of the Lizard Peninsula. It is situated half-a-mile (800 m) south of Lizard village in the civil parish of Landewednack and about 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Helston.
Lizard Poi ...
, a deposit "mostly valued for making porcelane ... and they get five pounds a ton for the manufacture of porcelane now carrying on at Bristol". The Cornish china stone was apparently first noticed by the Quaker pharmacist
William Cookworthy
William Cookworthy (12 April 170517 October 1780) was an English Quaker minister, a successful pharmacist and an innovator in several fields of technology. He was the first person in Britain to discover how to make hard-paste porcelain, like t ...
(1705-1780) around 1745; he was to found Plymouth porcelain, which moved to become the next Bristol factory. Cookworthy had family in Bristol, and it seems likely that the two Quakers knew each other.
Lund had a partner, William Miller, a "grocer and banker", a necessity as Lund was bankrupt at the time. A previous tenant of the premises was a Mr Lowdin, who died in 1745, and had nothing to do with the porcelain business, but this was not clear to early scholars, and older sources sometimes talk of a phantom "Lowdin's Porcelain Manufactory".
[Hughes, 215]
The factory only operated in Bristol until mid-1752, when Dr. Wall and his partners in
Worcester porcelain
Royal Worcester is a porcelain brand based in Worcester, England. It was established in 1751 and is believed to be the oldest or second oldest remaining English porcelain brand still in existence today, although this is disputed by Royal Crown De ...
bought the business and moved everything to
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
.
Pieces that are certainly made in Bristol in 1748? to 1752, rather than Worcester in the years after are extremely rare, but there are some with "Bristoll" in raised letters, including sauce-boats and copies of a figure of "Chinaman" that are moulded from a cast of a Chinese original.
Sauce-boats and their saucers, with shapes adapted from silversmithing, are among the most common pieces. Decoration could be
underglaze
Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...
blue "usually badly blurred and frequently in poorly executed ''
chinoiserie
(, ; loanword from French '' chinoiserie'', from '' chinois'', "Chinese"; ) is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, lite ...
'' designs, and
overglaze enamels
Overglaze decoration, overglaze enamelling or on-glaze decoration is a method of decorating pottery, most often porcelain, where the coloured decoration is applied on top of the already fired and glazed surface, and then fixed in a second firing ...
. The bodies fall into two different types, and the glaze formula was also changed at some point, improving it considerably.
Former Plymouth factory, or Champion's factory
Cookworthy's Plymouth factory was removed to Bristol in 1770 and was afterwards transferred to
Richard Champion of Bristol
Richard Champion (1743–1791) was an English merchant and porcelain manufacturer, who emigrated to the United States in 1784.
Early life
Champion was born into a Quaker merchant family from the Bristol area in England, the son of Joseph Champio ...
, a merchant and shipowner who had been a shareholder from 1768. Champion's Bristol factory lasted from 1774 to 1781, when the business was sold to a number of
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...
potters owing to serious losses it had accrued.
Bristol porcelain, like that of Plymouth, was a
hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain, sometimes "true porcelain", is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature, usually around 1400 °C. It was first made in China ...
: "It is harder and whiter than the other 18th-century English soft-paste porcelains, and its cold, harsh, glittering glaze marks it off at once from the wares of
Bow,
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
,
Worcester
Worcester may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England
** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament
* Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
or
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
".
[
Champion had great hopes for the factory, and succeeded in greatly improving the quality of the porcelain body, as well as maintaining and improving artistic standards.][Hughes, 215-216] Michel Socquet and the young Henry Bone
Henry Bone (6 February 1755 – 17 December 1834) was an English enamel painter who was officially employed in that capacity by three successive monarchs, George III, George IV and William IV. In his early career he worked as a porcelain a ...
, later a leading enamel painter on copper, were the two leading painters, and new Neoclassical styles were introduced. Where Cookworthy looked to East Asia porceain for models, Champion preferred Meissen porcelain
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work an ...
and French factories. Whilst ornamental wares were made, the staple was tea and coffee services, a number made for local businessmen or for politicians and their wives, including Jane Burke, wife of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
, who Champion helped to be elected MP for Bristol in 1774.
But Champion's other business interests ran into difficulty, and the porcelain was not producing immediate profits, so by the autumn of 1778 the firing of new porcelain ended, although there were considerable stocks of undecorated fired wares. These were being decorated and sold until 1782.
The wares of Plymouth and the first years at Bristol are not easily distinguished, and many prefer to classify pieces as "Cookworthy" or "Champion". Factory marks are of only limited help, as many pieces are unmarked, and the main mark was used at both Plymouth and Bristol; this was in underglaze
Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...
blue, the alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Although notation like this was mostly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists, so this pag ...
for tin, also used for the planet Jupiter. This presumably referred to Cornwall's main mining product. Other marks, such as a "B" with a cross in blue or gold, were only used at Bristol.[Honey, 336; Hughes, 215]
;Gallery of wares from the Champion period
File:Boy frightened by a Dog, c. 1772-1775, Bristol China Manufactory, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00756.JPG, ''Boy frightened by a Dog'', c. 1772–1775
File:Clevelandart 1917.611.2.jpg, ''Autumn'' from a set of the four seasons, 1770s
File:Armorial coffee saucer from the Edmund Burke service, 1774, Bristol China Manufactory, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00760.JPG, Coffee saucer from the Edmund Burke service, 1774
File:Cup And Saucer, ca. 1775 (CH 18340371) (cropped).jpg, Cup And Saucer, c. 1775
File:Plaque with Portrait Bust of Benjamin Franklin LACMA M.80.205.18.jpg, Plaque with Portrait Bust of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading int ...
, biscuit porcelain
Biscuit porcelain, bisque porcelain or bisque is unglazed, white porcelain treated as a final product, with a matte appearance and texture to the touch. It has been widely used in European pottery, mainly for sculptural and decorative objects th ...
, c. 1775
File:Teabowl and saucer, c. 1775, Bristol China Manufactory, decoration atttributed to Henry Bone, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00765.JPG, Teabowl and saucer, c. 1775, decoration attributed to Henry Bone
Henry Bone (6 February 1755 – 17 December 1834) was an English enamel painter who was officially employed in that capacity by three successive monarchs, George III, George IV and William IV. In his early career he worked as a porcelain a ...
File:Armorial teacup, coffee cup, spoon and saucer from the Daniel Ludlow service, c. 1775-1778, Bristol China Manufactory, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00763.JPG, Teacup, coffee cup, spoon and saucer from the Daniel Ludlow service, c. 1775–1778
File:Floral plaque, England, Bristol, c. 1776, hard-paste porcelain - Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - Montreal, Canada - DSC09423.jpg, Floral plaque in biscuit porcelain
Biscuit porcelain, bisque porcelain or bisque is unglazed, white porcelain treated as a final product, with a matte appearance and texture to the touch. It has been widely used in European pottery, mainly for sculptural and decorative objects th ...
, c. 1776
Notes
References
*Honey, W.B., ''Old English Porcelain: A Handbook for Collectors'', 1977, 3rd edn. revised by Franklin A. Barrett, Faber and Faber,
*Hughes, G Bernard, ''The Country Life Pocket Book of China'', 1965, Country Life Ltd
Further reading
*Panes, Nicholas, ''English Potter - American Patriot'', 2016.
Details here
*Severne-Mackenna, F, ''Champions Bristol Porcelain'', 1947.
*Owen, Hugh, ''200 Years of Ceramic Art in Bristol'', 1873.
{{Porcelain
British porcelain
Ceramics manufacturers of England
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
18th century in Bristol
19th century in Bristol