Worcester Porcelain – Dr Wall Period 1751-1783

I had a few moments before I had to leave. The lapping low tide was intermittently granting access to a mud plateau littered with white ceramic shards. Most were undecorated creamware but  a few patterned pieces caught my eye, which I quickly scooped up. Later I noticed two displayed hatched crescent marks– a lead just too tempting to resist, so onto google images. It took no time to work out they originated from the first period of Worcester Porcelain Factory, referred to as ‘Dr Wall’. One very similar to the bottom of the coffee mug (rosecroft antiques) pictured below, but now they are adjacent, I suspect mine is from a tea bowl or cup. 

Mudlarking Finds: Worcester Hatched Crescent

Worcester coffee Mug & Saucer 1780

Worcester Hatched Crescent

Whilst I'd heard of Worcester, no idea where is was - England’s West Midlands and in the 1750s home to the impressive Dr Wall. A doctor, founder of Worcester Royal Infirmary, champion of Malvern water and such a talented artist David Garrick jumped on chairs at Wall’s home to get a closer look at his paintings. In 1751 Dr Wall persuaded a group of 13 business men to pump prime the Worcester Porcelain Factory, a precursor of Royal Worcester and key player in the history of ceramics.

Dr Wall artist unknown (BBC) 

Porcelain had been produced in China since 200 and imported to Britain in large quantities from 16^th century. It took until 1710 for Europeans to master the art of production in Meissan Germany. The race was on to develop  British porcelain. It’s said that Dr Wall and apothecary William Davis experimented at Davis shop and discovered a way to make soft paste porcelain, later bringing additional technical expertise by  purchased their rival Benjamin Lund’s Bristol porcelain business in 1752. Securing a supply of soapstone from Cornwall clinched their success. When added to the mix soapstone rendered the finished product heat resistant -  other porcelain cracked on contact with hot water. Business canny and continuing to aim for best in class in 1756 they secured the services of Robert Hancock arguably the most talented copper plate engraver of his time.

Their target was the middle market. Products were tea and table wares. In 1754 they accessed the London market via a warehouse in Aldergate Street and large quantities of Worcester products were decorated in London by James Giles. Initially designs were hand painted. It is claimed Worcester were the first to introduce transfer printing to porcelain and from the 1770s most of their designs were transfer printed. Decorated in blue and white with Chinese and Japanese themes and from the mid 1750s with flowers in the flowing German style popular at this time.  They also produced more expensive coloured enamelled sets. They became the largest producer of blue and white Porcelain, so many of the porcelain shards found on the foreshore must originate from this company. 

I wonder if the other porcelain shards I found nearby are Worcester? German flowing flower style?

Mudlarking Finds: Porcelain Shards - Worcester?

Pattern on reverse of one shard

For some time I've wanted to match designs on my mudlarking fragments to their original patterns and even better linking these to developments in design over the centuries. Apart from the willow pattern up until now I’ve had no success. This time to my delight I thought I’d found the remains of the parrot pecking fruit design, associated with the aforementioned Robert Hancock, this shard has the hatched crescent on its reverse. Sadly on a closer look it's not an exact match, which wiped the very pleased with myself expression off my face. 

Mudlarking Find: Worcester Porcelain not the Parrot Eating Fruit Pattern

Parrot Pecking Fruit Pattern Worcester Mug 1775 (Steppes Hill Farm) 

Update

Ha, found it, the shard above (albeit upside down)  is from the 'fruit sprig' pattern, pic below - smug again. 

Worcester mug  with the “ Fruit Sprigs” pattern Circa 1770 (cathcartsantiques.com)

Flow Blue 1820s onwards

Type flow blue into a search engine and page upon page of material springs up, so much more than other types of pottery I’ve researched. The reason – the States. In the 19^th century onwards the US couldn’t get enough of this stuff,  so the pre conditions for a collectors market were fulfilled, large quantities of old things in different forms which in turn has created demand for information on the internet.

Mudlarking Finds: Flow Blue Pottery Shards

Flow blue is not uncommon the Thames foreshore. I do rather like the effect, rather more romantic than the bog standard transfer ware or perhaps its relative scarcity attracts.

Mudlarking Finds: More Flow Blue

Flow Blue is a type of transfer ware. As the name suggests it’s where the blue of a transfer print bleeds or ‘flows’ onto the white body of the object, caused by adding lime, chloride or ammonia to the kiln whilst firing. The origins are not clear. Some claim discovery was accidental others an intentional development by Staffordshire potters, with Josiah Wedgewood credited with its invention.

Wedgwood Flow Blue 'Chapoo' Platter (live auctioneers)

It’s usually applied to earthenware although sometimes to Porcelain. The blues varied with the most popular being cobalt blue, mulberry was also used. Flow blue was applied to the full range of objects from full dinner service to tea ware to bedroom wash sets.

Flow Blue Tea Pot, Shapoo Pattern by Thomas Hughes 1860-1870

The degree of bleeding varied widely. When first introduced the flow was limited, later some flowed so much the original design was completely obscured. It had the advantage of hiding defects in the application of transfer or faults in moulding or glazing.

When introduced flow blue was a popular product in Britain but demand apparently quickly diminished perhaps due to the sniffy attitude of some contemporary pottery commentators with this later illustration

N. Hudson Moore, wrote in his 1903 edition of The Old China Book, "There is a certain style of design known as 'flow blue,' which has nondescript patterns, flowers, geometric designs, and which has nothing whatever of beauty or interest to recommend it..."

After WWI the States began their own industry..... The English production of flow blue hugely reduced once the export market to the US dried up after WWI, a result of the States producing their own versions.

Transferware

The Thames foreshore is littered with transferware. I just assumed they were all Victorian but of course many are much older, dating to Georgian times. A stepped change in the development of ceramics, it was a new industrialised process. Eventually transferware was far cheaper to produce than hand painted goods, allowing the middle classes to purchase matching full dinner services to grace their dining tables and wash sets for their bedrooms, with matching basin and ewer, a cup for brushing teeth, soap dish, sponge dish, and a chamber pot.

Some claim John Sadler and Guy Green in Liverpool invented transferware, others Ravenet and Hancock at the York House Battersea factory in 1756. Patterns or pictures were etched onto copper plates, these were inked up and the image was transferred to a special tissue. The tissue was placed on a bisque fired ceramic object  thus transferring the print. It  was removed before more glaze was applied, the object was then fired again. 

There are two types of transferware pattern, the most common are those with a border design and a separate picture in the middle of the plate. The amount of white space between them varied with fashion over the decades. The second type used sheet patterns which covered the whole object. Marble patterns were popular in the 1800s and between 1860 – 1900 floral patterns.

Mudlarking Find: Transferware border design & middle picture

Mudlarking Find: Sheet Transferware - marbled pattern?

The early transfers were fixed on top of the glaze (overglazed) as the earthenware bodies available could not withstand the high kiln temperatures required. 

In the 1760s the Caughley factory in Shropshire produced underglaze printing. Joseph Spode and Wedgwood further developed this technique at their potteries in Staffordshire. This area became associated with this new product and indeed became known as 'the potteries' . Its production heralded the start of the industrial revolution. Churned out in such vast quantities it was one reason why woollen cloth was knocked off the top of England’s export list. America was its primary overseas destination contributing to mainland Europe no longer being the main recipient of England’s goods.

Patterns were initially printed in just one colour. Tricky to find out exactly when different colours were introduced as information out there is contradictory. The most common on the foreshore is unsurprisingly blue which some claim was the only  colour until 1809 and then continued to dominate with dark navy blue being introduced in 1818, developed by Enoch Wood. I have to confess to accumulating a rather large mound of this stuff, not all of it displayed below. 

Green apparently was  used from 1828 and green is certainly the second most common find.

Mudlarking Finds: Green Transferware from 1829

Wedgwood began using brown printing on a cream background in 1835, although I've read brown was first used in 1809. The two brown rim pieces which I realised slotted together were found 5 months apart – I like that. Brown seems to be the third most common find.

Mudlarking Find: Brown Transferware from 1809

Other colours appeared after 1830, English pink, purple, mulberry, yellow and sepia. All of which are less common on the foreshore. Can’t work out when they starting producing transferwares in black, but they too are far and few between. 

There seem to be two ways of identifying whether a piece of pottery is transferware rather than handpainted. Sometimes if you look closely you can seen the small dots that make up the pattern. Secondly the designs tend to be far more intricate and detailed. However, I still have a few pieces where I'm flummoxed.

Chinese Musicians

This beautiful piece was just sitting in the middle of the foreshore, when I went mudlarking one day.  Whilst it is clearly the bottom of a bowl or dish, I have no idea what type of ceramic it is, I doubt it is porcelain as it seems too thick. I wonder how old it is? The pictures look hand painted, but I am completely out of my depth here and my internet searching hasn’t thrown any light on this find.

Bowl Base found Mudlarking on the Thames, London

Willow Pattern Fragments

Willow Pattern 1780- present. 
The Willow Pattern was first produced in 1780-90, from Thomas Turners Factory in Shropshire from an engraving by Thomas Minton or from Josiah Spode’s factory in Staffordshire.

It combined elements from standard Chinese designs, willow tree hanging over three figures on a bridge, fence, bridge , boat, the pagoda teahouse with orange tree, island and two birds. The design was popular and copied by other factories.

In 1849, the willow pattern became associated with the tale first published in ‘The Family Friend’. English in origin it had no links to China, but captured the public imagination for the next hundred years.

I’m not adept enough to identify which shards are from willow patterns, but have clustered found elements from Thames foreshore over the last 5 months, which look as though they originate from this design. 

A Mandarin, grown fat and rich from bribes in his duties as a customs officer for the Emperor, planned an alliance between his beautiful young daughter and an old but wealthy aristocrat. On discovering his daughter was in love with his secretary, Chang, the son of a poor fisherman, the Mandarin flew into a rage and locked Koong-se inside a small house,

 surrounded by a fence to prevent the lovers from continuing their association.

As is the way with all romances, at least in fiction, love finds a way and the lovers met in secret to make their plans – on the day appointed, they began their escape, sheltering in a gardener's cottage temporarily until their absence was discovered. Recovering his wits, Chang leads Koong-seout through a back door and they cautiously make their way across the bridge,

but are spotted by the Mandarin who gives chase. Reaching the other side, the lovers make use of a small rowing boat to attempt to cross the waters and reach refuge on a small island. But the Mandarin and his household are gaining on them, in faster boats propelled by stronger oarsmen. Seeing their desperate plight, the gods take pity on the young people and turn them into birds who soar away to freedom(from http://ruby-lane.hubpages.com/hub/Willow-Pattern-Pottery-These-Lovers-Flew-Away)

Segments of orange trees

 and willow trees & the only bit of boat I’ve found.

Full willow pattern (Photo from http://www.teapartydiva.com/willow-pattern-china-history/)