sted in this country prior to
about 1740-1745. There are records of many tentative experiments before
this date, but no real history. Between 1745 and 1755 important
porcelain works were established at Chelsea, Bow, Worcester and Derby,
and when we examine the productions of these factories it is impossible
to avoid the conclusion that the processes had been imported from
France. The early English porcelains, like all the French porcelains of
that date, were composed of artificial or glassy mixtures.

We may take the early productions of Bow and Chelsea as typical of the
earliest English porcelain of which there is any definite record. The
material was a mixture of pipe-clay, sand from Alum Bay in the Isle of
Wight, and glass, while the glaze was a fusible English flint-glass rich
in lead. It is obvious, therefore, that we are dealing with substances
very similar to those used in the glassy French porcelain (see above),
and such mixtures were very difficult of fabrication, being subject to
great loss in the process of firing. In the other European countries
the manufacture of porcelain was almost invariably carried on at the
expense of some royal or princely patron; in England, however, the
manufacture was not subsidized in this way, and it is probably for this
reason that at a very early date we find the English porcelain-makers
experimenting with other materials than glass and clay in order to make
their processes more certain. In a patent taken out in 1749 by Thomas
Frye of the Bow works we find mention of the use of bone-ash--the
material that was to make English porcelain a distinct species by
itself. From 1750 onwards there can be little doubt that, though a large
proportion of glass was still used in the composition of the English
porcelains, bone-ash was more and more introduced into the paste in
order to obtain a more refractory material; yet it was not until about
1800 that Josiah Spode of Stoke-upon-Trent abandoned entirely the use of
glass and composed his porcelain of china clay, bone-ash and felspathic
rock for the body, glazing it with a rich lead glaze, and so laid the
foundation of distinctively English porcelain. The material has many
merits both from the useful and artistic points of view; it is much more
easily fabricated than the old glassy porcelains, it endures better for
ordinary table use than any other kind of porcelain, and it permits the
fullest range of decoration.

Before entering upon a d