OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
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WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

WILLIAM COOKWORTHY (1705-1780)

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.  The history of the business is told in Balkwill and Company.

William continued to practice as a Quaker and became a minister in the Plymouth Religious 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 Saint Stephen’s, near Saint 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.

In 1795 they opened a retail shop in Whimple Street, which Benjamin Balkwill agreed to manage for them.  In 1800 he married a cousin of William 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).