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Bow Porcelain Factory: the gruesome ingredient that changed the future of ceramics 

The origins of the 18th-century Bow Porcelain Factory are shrouded in mystery, but archaeological excavations have unveiled the forgotten history of what was once England’s largest china manufacturer. 

In 1744, on the banks of the River Lea and a stone’s throw away from Bow Church, an Irish artist and Bristol clothier began experimenting with porcelain production. By 1760, the experiment had paid off and Bow Porcelain was the largest factory in England. But how did it all begin?

In Bow, Thomas Frye and his partner Edward Heylyn found themselves a short distance from one of London’s oldest industrial sites, Three Mills Island, which had been milling grain and distilling gin from the 11th century. Surrounded by the spirit of East End entrepreneurship, perhaps the pair caught a fervour for novel modes of manufacturing. 

At the time, China was the main producer of hard-paste porcelain and had been making the material since the seventh century. The porcelain was originally comprised of finely ground feldspathic rock and kaolin clay, fired at an extremely high temperature of 1400 °C.

Kaolin was the most vital ingredient, envied by other countries who lacked access to this valuable raw material. From the Middle Ages onwards, China’s porcelain was globally admired for its impermeability, whiteness and remarkable translucence, allowing light to pass through the vessel. 

Countries couldn’t source the kaolin to produce ceramics of comparable beauty and durability, triggering huge demand across Europe in the 16th century for China’s costly ‘white gold’.

Porcelain Shop in Canton
Porcelain Shop in Canton, 1770-1790 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In 1710, the first European hard-paste porcelain was manufactured in Meissen, near Dresden. It wasn’t until December 1744 that England entered the industry when two Bow-based entrepreneurs began experimenting on the banks of the river Lea.

That winter, Frye and Heylyn filed their first patent for the production of porcelain utilising not kaolin, but ‘uneka, the produce of the Chirokee nation in America’. The patent said:

‘At a considerable expense of time and money in trying experiments, [we have] applied ourselves to find out a method for the improvement of the English earthenware, and had at last invented and brought to perfection a new method of manufacturing a certain material, whereby a ware may be made of the same nature or kind, and equal to, if not exceeding in goodness & Beauty China, or porcelain ware imported from abroad.’ 

The Cherokee are a people indigenous to the American Southeast, and uneka is a Middle Cherokee word for ‘white’. It seems Heylyn’s mercantile background may have enabled him to source and import quantities of the clay 8,000 km across the Atlantic Ocean to Bow, in a valiant attempt to mimic the grandeur of Chinese porcelain. 

Nevertheless, for all their optimism, there is little recorded evidence of much porcelain being made under this patent on the west side of the River Lea. In 1744, Frye and Heylyn may have thought uneka could rival Chinese kaolin, but it turns out the secret ingredient was far closer to home, and a bit more grisly: bone ash. 

The year 1748 heralded a relocation across the river, and a new, if grotesque, money-making material for the enterprising duo. 

That November, Fyre filed a patent for porcelain production on the northwest side of Stratford Highstreet, between Sugar House Lane and Marshgate Lane. This new-and-improved factory was conveniently located closer to Three Mills Island, the industrial site full of piggeries and slaughterhouses providing a ready-made supply of animal bones for the eager experimenters. 

Ground-up cow bones may seem a far cry from the finished product of a dainty porcelain mannequin. Nevertheless, it turns out calcified animal bones were integral to Frye and Heylyn’s winning formula. 

The business partners may have been unsuccessful in manufacturing hard-paste porcelain, but they found bone ash added strength to their soft-paste mixtures, and a pleasing, milky-white finish to their ceramic masterpieces. 

Today, a rare Bow Porcelain peacock from 1758 is worth around £7,888.40, and a pair of 1755 pheasants sold for almost £20,000 in 2011. But what were the ceramics worth in the 18th century? 

The first recorded Bow Porcelain Company invoice is dated February 1749, issued to a Miss Bruce for ‘8 Arguile cups and saucers; 2 pint Sprig’d Mugs and 6 handled Sprig’d cups’ for the sum of one pound, nineteen shillings and sixpence, or about £230.42 in today’s currency. 

Like their first industrial site west of the River Lea, the Bow Porcelain Factory east of the river no longer exists. But in its heyday, Frye and Heylyn’s manufacturer was known as ‘New Canton’, rivalling the factories on the bank of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, China. 

For years, the creative experiments of the East London entrepreneurs were overlooked, but excavations of the industrial site in 1867, 1921, 1969 and 2006 have shone a light on the unprecedented achievements of the Bow factory. By piecing together buried fragments of centuries-old china, archaeologists have salvaged the true extent of Frye and Helyn’s innovations. 

By the end of the 18th century, the duo’s ingenious use of calcified bone ash to make ‘bone China’ was taken up by almost every other porcelain factory in the country. In its prime, the Bow Porcelain Factory employed around 300 hundred workers, 90 of whom were painters, all working under one roof. 

Even in their heyday, Bow porcelain was not as celebrated as the cobalt blue-and-white masterpieces from China. The factory was notorious for manufacturing ceramics with an uneven finish, tending towards ivory as opposed to the pristine whiteness of Chelsea porcelain, a major competitor. Throughout the 1750s and 1760s, the factory directly copied Chinese, Japanese and Meissen designs, but couldn’t emulate their fine quality.

But the East London manufacturers were more than just imitators and were catering towards a different, more diverse market. 

As well as meeting the demand of wealthy consumers, Bow Porcelain Factory produced an abundance of domestic wares for the middle classes on a more modest income. In this sense, the Bow manufacturers defined themselves against their more exclusive competitors in Chelsea, whose expensive wares were only enjoyed by royalty and elite collectors. 

You could still rely on the Bow factory for decadent ceramics. Indeed, amongst their collection, you’ll find a majestic miniature Neptune astride a dolphin and an exotic lime-green parrot with intricate feathers. But by mimicking the prized elegance of the Chelsea factory without the price tag, the East London manufacturers allowed middle-class families a slice of luxury. 

By 1750, the factory had passed into the new ownership of John Crowther and Weatherby, and Fyre was serving as manager. After booming in 1758, quality at the Bow Porcelain Factory declined and production decreased, and the company was eventually sold for a small sum in 1776.

While their success was short-lived, Thomas Frye and Edward Heylyn were an integral part of Britain’s global industrial legacy. Since the 20th century, countries worldwide have been producing bone china, utilising the ingenious method discovered by a pair of aspiring manufacturers in 18th-century East London.

With its inventive bone ash concoction, the Bow Porcelain Factory rivalled the celebrated majesty of Chinese porcelain from the banks of the River Lea.

Neptune astride a dolphin bow porcelain factory
Neptune astride a dolphin 1760 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
South American parrot 1758-62 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
South American parrot 1758-62 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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3 thoughts on “Bow Porcelain Factory: the gruesome ingredient that changed the future of ceramics 

  • Jane Hay

    Great article Imogen. The Bow factory holds a very important place in the history of British Ceramics. I hope the new V&A will seize the opportunity to showcase through exhibitions the arts and crafts, creative industries, architects and artists who have contributed so much to this area.

    Reply
  • I inherited a piece handed down through my family which I was told is Bow Pottery, but local auctioneers/valuers etc all say they do not know enough to verify it (or otherwisde). Can Paul Miller suggest anyone in the Brighton or London areas who can do this?

    Reply
  • September 18th, 2024 Dr W R H Ramsay

    By chance I was looking through the internet and this account ‘The forgotten history of the Bow Porcelain Factory’, caught my eye. In particular the claim that the origins of that concern are (present tense) shrouded in mystery. While there has been mystery associated with the Bow concern, I suggest that this alleged mystery is now a good deal less than it was a quarter of a century ago.
    Back then the millstone syndrome ruled supreme, namely that Bow produced a soft-paste bone ash porcelain only and no earlier than c. 1747. Anything attributed to Bow prior to 1747 was experimental, non-commercial, or not worth a tin of fish. My how things have changed.

    In this account the author claims that excavations have unveiled the forgotten history of what was once England’s largest china manufacturer. Yes, excavations have greatly enhanced our understanding of Bow but it has been science more than anything that has drilled back prior to 1747 and shone a light into this ‘mystery’.

    Back in 2003 when I and colleagues argued for the Trinity, namely Bow, the 1744 patent specification, and ‘A’-marked porcelains, there was considerable anguish and opposition expressed in that such a claim cut across the stricture of Charleston and Mallet (1971) that there was no known form, potting, or decoration that linked these 1744 patent wares with the porcelains of the Frye virgin earth patent of 1749. Likewise, such a claim contradicted the assertion by Bernard Watney (1973) that the Cherokee clay-based recipe was most almost certainly unworkable. I have to smile in that some 20 years on we are now advised as fact that Cherokee clay was used to make porcelains at Bow. I am indeed delighted.

    I do have to comment, however, on the claim that there is little recorded evidence of much porcelain being made under this patent. Here maybe the author should call into the V&A and see the fine collection of these porcelains on show. Daniels et al. (2013) have calculated that there are of the;
    ……….surviving pieces from 9 ‘high style’ tea services and 10 from stock pattern services were identified. In 1994 Mallet was able to add another 3 services, two ‘high-style’ and one stock pattern, making a total of 22 known separate tea services. With the addition of a ‘high-style’ cane handle and snuffbox the total number of extant pieces of ‘A’marked porcelain was 34. Since then about a dozen more pieces have emerged, but apart from a cane handle and two snuffboxes in the ‘high-style’, we have not seen these so are currently unaware of their shapes or patterns. Therefore, of course, we do not know whether they will increase the total number of services or add to those already identified.

    Considering the short period of commercial production such an amount of porcelain can hardly be dismissed as of ‘little recorded evidence’. This desire to marginalise what is one of the great contributions to the Western porcelain tradition is matched by the constant attempts to dismiss and question what must be your most important ceramic document (1744 patent specification) leading my wife and I to record (Ramsay and Ramsay, 2017) that,

    Never in the history of English ceramic studies has such a landmark document been so marginalised and/or dismissed by so many, for so long, based on such unfortunate reasoning.

    In the case of the products of this patent, we have one expert in 2024 declaring these porcelains to be little more than a ‘bubble’ and the current author of ‘Forgotten history’ that there is little recorded evidence for such porcelains. A good summary of where we are with regard to the 1744 patent porcelains can be found in Edwards et al, (2022) where the history, aspects of connoisseurship, and composition of these porcelains are discussed. More recently in Ramsay and Edwards (2024) eight primary source documents are listed and examined with regard to these porcelains; hardly indicative of little recorded evidence. In fact, Ramsay and Edwards go further to observe that there appears to be more primary evidence in existence with regard to the 1744 patent porcelains and the early years of Bow than for any other early English porcelain factory. Here I add that a ninth record of early Bow and its 1744 patent porcelains has just been recognised.

    I comment on the claim made that Heylyn and Frye commenced experimentation on these patent porcelains in 1744. This is an old chestnut that keeps being repeated in the literature suggesting that Heylyn and Frye got out of bed one morning and by dinner time fully fledged porcelain examples were being produced. Both Frye and Heylyn were ‘front’ men and almost certainly had little to do with the experimentation and development at Bow that went back into the 1730s. The driving force behind this experimentation were wealthy backers such as Aldermen of London the Royal Society, and potters especially from Staffordshire. Ramsay and Edwards (2024) give recognition to four such potters, namely John Brittain, Thomas Hammersley, William Ball, and Richard Meir, but to my concern we overlooked the role that John Astbury must have played, in particular with regard to the development of slip-cast techniques at Bow.
    The origins of the Si-Al-Ca recipe had a gestation period of some 70 years not one year, having been traced back by Ramsay and Ramsay (2017) and Ramsay and Edwards (2024) to the 17th C and the Burghley House jars and arguably John Dwight. Initially the recipe used including at early Bow, was a triaxial formulation but by around the late 1730s Bow converted this to a biaxial formula which was recorded in the 1744 specification.

    Of note is the Frye virgin earth recipe was filed in late 1749 not November 1748.

    In summary it now appears that the Bow porcelain concern has been greatly misunderstood. Part of this reason has been through the exclusion of science and the dominance of form and decoration in arriving at such conclusions. In fact, Bow was operating much earlier than given credit for, producing a range of recipe types including three hard-paste formulations. The first was the 1744 patent specification using Cherokee clay, the second was the production of an English bone china body some 50 years before Spode, and the third a very hard-paste body based on a secondary clay, most likely a Dorset ball clay (Ramsay and Edwards, 2024). In addition, both Ramsay and Ramsay (2007) and Daniels (2007) have argued that Bow utilised soapstone in the early-mid 1740s. This view has been hotly contested in the literature though we note that John Mallet (2024) now accepts this assertion that early Bow produced soapstone porcelains. The upshot of this acceptance is that the distance between Bow using soapstone and Mallet’s opposition to Bow producing the George II busts and brackets is now wafer thin. Science is indeed illumination new areas in our attempts to understand early Bow.

    Charleston, R.J. & Mallet, J.V. G., 1971. A problematical group of 18th century porcelains. Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle, 8, pp. 80-121.
    Daniels P., 2007. The Origin & Development of Bow Porcelain 1730-1747 Including the Participation of the Royal Society, Andrew Duche, and the American Contribution. Resurgat Publishers, Oxon. 343 pp.
    Daniels, Pat, Ross & Gael Ramsay, 2013. The George II Busts and Historic Wall Brackets: The Motivation, Symbolism and Technology by which the Models can be dated to 1745-6 and Attributed to the First Bow Factory in Middlesex. Resurgat Publishers, Oxon, 83 pp.
    H. G. M. Edwards, W. H. Jay & W. R. H. Ramsay, ‘High-fired early English porcelains of the ‘A’-marked group, east London (c. 1744): A Raman spectroscopy and electron microscopy compositional study’, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy 53:4 (2022), pp. 785- 809.
    Mallet J. V. G., 2024. Two ‘A’ marked porcelain saucers enter the Ashmolean. Oxford Ceramics Group, Newsletter, 59, June 2024, pp. 26-33.
    Ramsay, W. R. H., & Ramsay, E. G., 2007. A classification of Bow porcelain from first patent to closure: c. 1743-1774. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 119(1), pp. 1-68.
    Ramsay, W. R. H., & E. G. Ramsay, 2017. The evolution and compositional development of English porcelains from the 16thC to Lund’s Bristol c. 1750 and Worcester c. 1752 – the golden chain (Invercargill, New Zealand).
    Ramsay, W. R. H., & Edwards H. G. M., 2024. New insights into the porcelains of William Reid & Co., Liverpool, and their prior links to London, c. 1744-1748. J. Northern Ceramics Society, pp. 101-135.
    Ramsay, W. R. H., Gabszewicz, A., & Ramsay, E. G., 2003. The chemistry of ‘A’-marked porcelain and their relationship to the Heylyn and Frye patent of 1744. Transactions English Ceramic Circle, 18(2), pp. 264-283.
    Watney, B. M. 1973. English Blue & White Porcelain of the 18th Century. Faber and Faber Ltd., London. 145 pp.

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