Liverpool porcelain
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Liverpool porcelain is mostly of the soft-paste
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 ...
type and was produced between about 1754 and 1804 in various factories in
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
. Tin-glazed
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 ...
had been produced in Liverpool from at least 1710 at numerous potteries, but some then switched to making porcelain. A portion of the output was exported, mainly to North America and the Caribbean. The factories produced a great variety of wares and some figures. However the main production was
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 and white porcelain "Blue and white pottery" () covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by sten ...
with the fashionable Oriental designs, which Liverpool delftware painters were already well used to. Some transfer-printed wares, both
overglaze 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 ...
and underglaze, were made as well as polychrome overglaze "enamelled" decorated pieces. Liverpool porcelain is characterized by foot-rims vertical or undercut on the inner surface; flat bases to mugs; areas of blue ground marbled in gold; a blued glaze giving a 'thundercloud' effect where thick under the base. There are no factory marks for the Liverpool concerns although a mark on later wares is sometimes seen in under-glaze blue with the initials HP. English Liverpool pottery and porcelain is not to be confused with the products of
East Liverpool, Ohio East Liverpool is a city in southeastern Columbiana County, Ohio, United States. The population was 9,958 at the 2020 census. It lies along the Ohio River within the Upper Ohio Valley and borders Pennsylvania to the east and West Virginia to the ...
, a large American pottery centre, especially from about 1880 to 1960, was said to be known as the "Pottery Capital of the World" (at least in the American Mid-West).


Factories

The factories included: * Richard Chaffers (1754–65) * Samuel Gilbody (1754–61) * William Reid (1755–61) * Phillip Christian (1765–78) * William Ball (1763 –? * James Pennington (1763–73) * John & Jane Pennington (1770–94) * Seth Pennington & John Part (1778–1803)


Richard Chaffers & Co

Richard Chaffers made
soapstone Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the zo ...
-type porcelain featuring mainly Oriental designs at Shaw's Brow. An advertisement for it in 1756 provides the earliest documentation of Liverpool porcelain production, which he continued until his death in 1765. In 1756 he also held a licence to mine soapstone at a site in
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
. The porcelain resembles Worcester porcelain. Most of the plates made by the factory are octagonal, and some tea and coffee sets are six-sided. A common product was a bulbous mug with an incised cordon above the foot, enamelled with a Chinese scene in polychrome. Philip Christian & Co took over the factory when Richard Chaffers died and produced similar designs until 1778.


Samuel Gilbody

Next door to Chaffers, Samuel Gilbody took over his father's earthenware business and switched to the production of enamelled porcelain at his "China Manufactory" on Shaw's Brow, Liverpool, from about 1755 until his bankruptcy in 1760. His factory is probably one of two shown on a 1769 map of Liverpool.


William Reid

The third manufacturer was William Reid of Brownlow Hill. On 12 November 1756 his first advert for porcelain produced in Liverpool appeared in the Liverpool Advertiser. He used an underglaze blue Oriental designs on an almost opaque body. It read: 'Liverpool China Manufactory of Messrs Reid and Co, proprietors of the China Manufactory, have opened their warehouse in Castle Street and sell all kinds of blue and white china ware, not inferior to any made in England, both wholesale and retail'. The company went bankrupt in June 1761 but the business continued under William Ball, before it was sold in July 1763 to Thomas Lewis, and was then leased to James Pennington and Co. The Pennington family, James, John and Seth continued to produce porcelain on the site until around 1767/1768 when they moved the factory to Park Lane until 1773. John Pennington also had two porcelain Factories: Copperas Hill c. 1770–79 and Folly Lane 1779–86 which was continued by his widow Jane until 1794.


William Ball

William Ball used a soapstone porcelain with a glossy glaze to give a shiny ('sticky') appearance, as did the Penningtons, to his Chinese patterns with a blue under-glaze.


Other factories

For a short time, at the close of the eighteenth century (1790–95), the partnership of Thomas Wolfe with Mason & Lucock made hybrid-hard-paste porcelain of a type first produced at New Hall in Staffordshire, at the Islington China Works. The Herculaneum factory was established in 1796 by Samuel Worthington at first producing some earthenware and stoneware with workers from Staffordshire but produced some porcelain, mainly tea-ware around 1800. File:C.1765 Liverpool dish (UBC-2010).jpg, Plate, c. 1765, Liverpool (or London) File:Cylindrical vase MET SF1995 268 237.jpg, Vase, c. 1770 File:Porcelain vase, Williamson Art Gallery.jpg, Vase by John and Jane Pennington, late 18th-century File:Porcelain bowl, Williamson Art Gallery.jpg, Commemorative "ship bowl" for punch, a common Liverpool form. John and Jane Pennington, late 18th-century File:Samuel Gilbody porcelain (1), Williamson Art Gallery.jpg, Samuel Gilbody, 1758–60


Notes


References

* Battie, David, ed., ''Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Porcelain'', 1990, Conran Octopus. *Honey, W.B., ''Old English Porcelain'', 1977 (3rd edn.), Faber and Faber, *Spero, Simon, ''Liverpool Porcelain 1755-1799'', 2006


Further reading

*Brown, E. Myra and Lockett, Terence A. (eds.), ''Made in Liverpool: Liverpool Pottery and Porcelain, 1700-1850'', 1993, National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, , 9780906367636 *Watney, Bernard M., ''Liverpool Porcelain of the Eighteenth Century'', 1997, Richard Dennis, London, {{DEFAULTSORT:Liverpool Porcelain Liverpool group Liverpool group History of Liverpool English pottery