WILLIAM COOKWORTHY
William Cookworthy
was born at Kingsbridge, Devon, on April 11th 1705, the son of a weaver.
His father died in 1718 and the family were quickly reduced to a state of poverty.
At the age of 14
he was apprenticed to Timothy and Silvanus Bevan, who were chemists and druggists in Queen
Street, Cheapside, London. Like his father,
they were Quakers. As he was unable to afford
the coach fare to London, he walked the whole 200-odd miles. It seems to have been a remarkably good
apprenticeship, for he was taught Latin, French and Greek in addition to drug dispensing.
When he had
completed his training, in 1726, the Bevans offered him a position in a new wholesale
pharmacy business that they were setting up in Notte Street, Plymouth. By 1735 he had become a partner and the business
was renamed Bevan and Cookworthy. In that
year he married Miss Sarah Berry. Ten years
later he bought out his partners but Sarah’s unexpected death that year left him with
a family of five girls to bring up on his own. His
brother, Philip, joined him as a partner and the business became Messrs William Cookworthy
and Company, the Bevans having by now left the scene.
His youngest brother, Benjamin, married into another famous Plymouth family,
the Colliers.
William continued
to practice as a Quaker and became a minister in the Plymouth Society of Friends. It is said that his large house in Notte Street
was visited by many of the prominent people of the time but the most significant of his
visitors were three men from Virginia who called in 1745 to show him samples of Virginian
clay and porcelain. They were hoping to
persuade him to import the clay, as was being done at Bristol.
At that point in
time, English potters were only able to produce what was known as ‘earthenware’. Porcelain was imported from China, where the clay
used was known as ‘kaolin’. But in
1746 Cookworthy discovered china clay nearer home, at Tregonning Hill in the parish of
Germo, Cornwall, where it was known as “moorstone”. He was visiting the Great Work Mine and noticed
that the miners were repairing furnaces with clay. He
enquired where it came from and took some samples back to Plymouth with him. He found it was good for making porcelain and
leased several clay pits on the Hill. The
clay was shipped from Porthleven to Plymouth, where he carried out experiments to find the
best way to process, glaze and fire it. By
December 1766 he had set up a small factory in which he manufactured items as a trial.
On March 17th 1768
Cookworthy obtained a patent for ‘Making porcelain from Moorstone, Growan and
Growan Clay’. The patent gave him
the exclusive right to use china clay and china stone for porcelain manufacture.
The clay from
Tregonning Hill was not of the finest quality, however, as it contained dark specks of
mica. Better quality deposits were found on
land owned by Mr Thomas Pitt in the parish of St Stephen’s, near St Austell, and this
quickly replaced that imported from Tregonning Hill.
Mr Pitt, who was to become Lord Camelford in 1784, invested money in the
process and with William Cookworthy set up the Plymouth China Works in Plymouth, in which
they manufactured tea services, vases and jugs.
Much controversy
has existed over the location of Cookworthy’s manufactory, particularly in view of
the building now called “The China House” at Shepherd’s Wharf, Coxside. Bracken states in his “History of
Plymouth”, published in 1932, that ‘The house traditionally known as the
“China House” in the Plymouth and Oreston Timber Company’s premises no
longer exists.’ It is said that
Cookworthy actually made the pottery at premises in the High Street and only stored the
goods at Coxside. The earliest use of that
name for a building was in 1786, long after the business had been moved to Bristol.
The business was
not very profitable and it was soon amalgamated with a similar one at Bristol in the name
of Messrs William Cookworthy and Company. Mr
Richard Champion, Cookworthy’s cousin, was made manager. It was to Richard that he sold his interest in the
Company when he decided to retire in 1773/74. He
continued to receive a royalty on every item made, though.
When Richard tried
to renew Cookworthy’s patent in 1777, Josiah Wedgwood and other potters in
Staffordshire raised objections and although the patent formula was upheld, the actual use
of the china clay was released to enable the manufacture of other ceramic products
provided that the formula was not infringed. The
cost of the legal battle unfortunately crippled the Company and Richard sold the formula
in 1782 to the New Hall Porcelain Company, which had been formed by the Staffordshire
potters. They continued to produce porcelain
until around 1810, when bone china became available.
William Cookworthy died on Tuesday October 17th 1780 and was
buried in the family vault in the Westwell Street Burial Ground. At that time the wholesale business in Notte
Street passed to his young brother, Benjamin. When
Benjamin died in 1785 it passed via William’s daughter, Sarah, to his grandson,
Francis Fox. The premises continued to be
used as a pharmacy up until 1974, when its last owner retired.
In 1795 they opened a retail shop in Whimple Street, which
Benjamin Balkwill agreed to manage for them. In
1800 he married a Cookworthy and in 1811 the shop was transferred to Old Town Street,
where the wholesale business later joined it. In
1856 Mr Alfred Payne Balkwill joined the business and by the time he retired in 1911 the
business was well-known under his name rather than Cookworthy’s.
Notte Street underwent a tremendous rebuilding programme in
the 1880s to rid the area of the artisan’s dwellings.
As part of that programme, Cookworthy’s large house was rebuilt as a
Mission Hall but retaining the business premises on the ground floor. It is still standing today and is identifiable by
the stone plaques commemorating William Cookworthy affixed beneath the window ledges on
the ground floor.
The earliest known
extant piece of Cookworthy's hard-paste porcelain is now in the British Museum; a blue
decorated mug bearing the Arms of Plymouth and the inscription "14 March 1768 C.F." - presumably the initials mean
"Cookworthy fecit" (made it).
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