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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Bow Porcelain
By T. Leonard Crow
PORCELAIN is of Chinese origin. The period of its first
production is unknown, dating back into far antiquity.
Indeed it is said that the Chinese were making porcelain—which
they termed "translucent pottery"—circa 1200 B.C. The process
of manufacture was kept by them as a closely guarded secret
for nearly 3,000 years.
A brief—though necessarily incomplete—chronological sum-
mary indicates porcelain production outside the Orient, in the
16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The secret, held by the Chinese,
was the process of making what we know as 'hard-paste' or 'true'
porcelain; and chemists throughout Europe and the U.S.A. were
constantly endeavouring to discover this secret. The first to
succeed was J. F. Bottger, of Meissen, near Dresden, in 1710; and
the first in England was William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, in
1768.
Our concern, however, is with 'soft-paste' or 'artificial'
porcelain. Of this process there were many discoverers, outside
the Orient, dating from the 16th century. The first, of whose
products there is any real evidence, was Francesco dei Medici, of
Florence. He produced a somewhat crude 'soft-paste' porcelain,
circa 1575. A few examples of it are in The Victoria and Albert
Museum. Unfortunately, Francesco died without divulging his
secret formula.
During the 18th century many porcelain factories were estab-
lished in France and Germany, and in this same period England
also awakened to the growing demand for porcelain. Bow was
the first in the field, closely followed by Chelsea; then came
Bristol, Derby, Worcester, Longton Hall and others.
Thomas Frye, a Quaker, was born in or near Dublin in 1710.
About 1738 he emigrated to this country and settled at Bow,
in Middlesex. Although his profession was that of an artist and
engraver, Frye became keenly interested in porcelain, which at
that time was being produced in large quantities on the Continent,
but not in Great Britain. He formed a warm friendship with
Edward Heylin, a glassmaker, whose factory was in Bow. Here
they conducted experiments in the manufacture of porcelain,
using the glassmaker's kiln. That they were successful is evident
from the fact that in 1744 Frye and Heylin, together, applied for
and were granted the first English patent for porcelain; and that
some five years later Frye, alone, took out a patent for his in-
vention of Phosphatic (or Bone-ash) porcelain. Very soon it was
apparent that Heylin's glass-house could no longer accommodate
the fast-growing Bow porcelain manufacture, and at the end of
1749 all porcelain-making in Bow ceased. Early in 1750 the work
re-started under the management of Thomas Frye, at "The New