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Grigsby, Leslie B. (Leslie Brown) / The Longridge collection of English slipware and delftware. Volume 2: delftware
(2000)

Delftware introduction,   pp. 20-[28]


Page 22

 
Southwark merchant Edmund Bradshawe, who traded along the Barbary Coast and
at 
Mediterranean ports, was granted a patent that permitted him to manuftacture
tin-glazed 
earthenware "as is used in Fiansa and other parte beyond the Seas.",
   Although maiolica from Southern Europe certainly influenced early English
tin glaze 
and had formed an important part of the import trade from medieval times,,
ultimately 
imports from Holland had the greatest impact on the budding English tin-glazed
earthen- 
ware industry. Even the term delft, commonly used for English tin-glazed
earthenware by 
the early 1700s, was taken from the name of an important Dutch tin-glazed
earthenware 
manufacturing center. (Modern scholars and collectors sometimes use capitalization
or the 
lack of it to differentiate between discussions of Dutch Delft and English
delft.) Among other 
early labels applied to Continental and English tin glaze are galliware or
gallyware (in use 
from the late 1500s to the 1700s), probably a reference to the ships that
first carried the 
nieces to Eneland: bastard chino ldarin from the late 1600sd: Hollondswor&,:
and whit', wore' 
   Late seventeenth-century English entrepreneurs fully appreciated the financial
potential 
of delftware manufacture. Sir John Lowther was interested in setting up (but
never suc- 
cessfully achieved) ceramic production at his Cumberland estate. In 1697/8
he recorded the 
results of his study of the industry in correspondence with his factor, William
Gilpen. One 
letter relayed information provided by Fulham potter John Dwight: 
        The Gally ware, or Hollandsware, as you call it, made at Lambeth
has also 
        [their clay] from a particular place belonging to Sir J. Banks not
but that 
        other places will do, but where they find good they stick to it.'
   Another of Lowther's letters enclosed Dwight's comments contrasting the
quality of and 
production methods used for delft and other earthenware with those used to
produce 
stoneware: 
        The differences between stone & Earthen Ware are such as these
stone 
        Pots (not Holland [here, unglazed redware] but cologne Ware) are
made of 
        Tobacco Pipe Clay wth some fine sand intermixd, & burnt but once.
the 
        Earthen Gally or White Ware cannot be made of Tobacco Pipe Cley,
but of 
        other sorts that will not endure a strong fire, & are twice (but
soft) burnt, 
        & that with wood only, for the glazing of wich White, Tin &
Lead calcind 
        together are used. The other Earthen country Pots that are glazed
wth 
        Lead-Oar are also soft burnt, & burnt for ye most part wth ...
Coale.... 
        Great store of white Ware [delft] is made in England, nor is there
any want 
        of Materialls or people bred up in & about that Manufacture....
That wich 
        is calld bastard China is only the White or gally Ware wrought thin
and 
        hansomly painted, is rotten within and hath no intrinsick vall.1°
(Dwight was not a delftware manufacturer and, like any good businessman,
preferred to 
show his own products in the best light.) 
   Dwight also provided Lowther with a rough recipe, discussed delftware
types and clay 
preparation, and offered a rare description of shaping delft pieces on the
wheel: 
5. Edwards, London Potters, p. 8; Weatherill and Edwards,  8. Britton, Inventories,
pp. 61-63; Archer, V&A, pp. 3 4. 
London and Whitehaven, p. 179 (Archer, V&A, p. 4, identi-  Austin, Delft,
p. 15, suggests that the term galleyware is 
fies the 1613 patent recipient as Hugh Cressey).      derived from the Saxon
for clay. 
6. Archer, V&A, p. 3.                        9. Weatherill and Edwards,
London and Whithaven, 
7. Valpy, 18th Century Newspapers, pp. 310, 313-316;        p. 163. 
Archer, V&A, p. 4.                          10. Ibid., pp. 163 164. Holland
ware also sometimes refers 
                                            to unglazed red stoneware made
in that country. 
22 The Longridge Collection 
5. 
il 


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