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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
Copyright Jonathan Horn Publications 2000.| For information on re-use see: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Copyright




