POTTERY, called also earthenware, is a term used to denote vessels of any shape or size, formed of earth or clay, or the art of manufacturing them. Pottery may be regarded as merely the coarser species of porcelain. The articles of the former manufacture, while they require fewer materials, and these less pure, though more fusible, require also much less skill and delicacy in the making; are incomparably cheaper, particularly the coarser kind; are ruder and more inelegant ; and are, from the gross ness of the materials of which they're formed, unsuscept ible of the high ornament and polish, characteristic of porcelain.
These articles, however, though devoid of -the beauty and delicacy of porcelain, must have been invented at the very remotest periods of human society. Porcelain had attained to great distinction in China very soon after the Christian era ; but pottery, a thing of indispensable daily use, must have been invented long ere refinement could haVe dreamt of a manufacture so elegant and so compli cated as porcelain. In the infancy of society, the very first want that men would feel, would be vessels capable of holding his meat and his drink : such vessels were proba bly at first made of the skins of beasts caught in the chase, or were excavated out of wood ; hut the art of making such articles of earth, though perhaps not immediately invented, must have been well known at a period extreme ly early, and of which no traces could come down to us. As the Chinese were unquestionably the inventors of por celain, we may suppose, with sufficient probability, that pottery was early brought by them to great perfection ; and that, indeed, the knowledge of the latter paved the way for the knowledge of the former. Pottery also, at a re mote period,attained to great distinction among the Egyp tians, from whom it naturally descended to the Greeks and Romans. The latter people indeed carried the art to a degree of perfection, which, in some respects, it has not yet si-passed, and which induced the late celebrated Mr. Wedgewouti co name the village that grew out of his in dustry and genius after the district in ancient Italy that had cultivated the manufacture with the greatest ardour and success. At what period the art was introduced into Britain cannot be exactly ascertained. The first place where it is known to have been practised was Burslem, in Staffordshire, mentioned (1686) by Dr. Plot, as the principal pottery institution in this country. The art, at that time, seems to have been in its rudest state, the ware being all extremely clumsy, the colours both coarse and very unskilfully applied, the glazing con sisting entirely of lead ore, or calcined lead, a substance uncommonly pernicious and dangerous. The year 1690 forms a kind of era in the history of this manufacture in Britain ; for, at that period, two brothers, from Holland, of the name of Edcrs or Ellers, settled in Burslem, ex tending the former establishment to a great degree, and accomplished several improvements and discoveries. These two individuals, however, from a misunderstanding with the neighbouring inhabitants, on account of the fumes which their furnaces emitted, soon retired to their native country ; but the effects of their ingenuity and en terprise remained behind them ; and they were succeeded by men who, availing themselves of their example, were equally persevering and successful. But it was not till
1763 that the most important and memerable improve ments were made in the art. The person by whom these were effected was Josias 1Vedgewood, a gentleman of great science and great industry, whose name is known throughout Europe, not merely for his inventions and dis coveries in the manufacture of pottery, but for the benefits he conferred on natural science in general. Of the in ventions and improvements of this celebrated person, an account may be found under the article WEDGEWOOD ; and it need merely at present be mentioned, that, prior to his time, the pottery of this country was, comparatively speak ing, destitute of taste, beauty, and utility ; that manufac tories of this article are now established in various parts of England ; and that what is denominated the Potteries in Staffordshire, a place eight miles long and six broad, con taining fifteen large manufactories, of which one is Etruria, founded by Mr. Wedgewood, and now the property of his sons, are the most extensive, opulent, and celebrated in the kingdom.* The ingredients in the manufacture of pottery are clay and flint, with other subordinate substances, inseparable from the two ingredients just specified. These clays or natural compounds, to which vessels owe their ductility or capability of being moulded to any form, are found to con sist of pure clay or alumine, silex, lime, sometimes mag nesia, and not unfrequently of oxyd of iron ; in which in gredients the alumine predominates to an incomparable degree. The flint, used in this manufacture, is the com mon kind for striking fire, and consists almost entirely of pure silex, with minute and almost indiscernible traces of alumine, lime, and oxyd of iron and water. The finest stoneware, therefore, is made of the purest pipe-clay, and the purest flint. When in the clay, the oxyd of iron oc curs, the pottery made of it burns to different shades of red, in proportion to the quantity of iron. Magnesia, when combined with the clay, gives to it a soapy character; from which it has been denominated soap-rock, a particular kind being called steatite. The clays of which the Staffordshire ware are manufactured, are brought from Dorsetshire and Devonshire, the former affording clay of a superior quality to the latter. The clays of both places, however, are tinguished by almost every property necessary to the pur pose to which they are applied, particularly for extreme whiteness when burnt ; a circumstance which results front their being free from iron, a metal which, as just stated, imparts a reddish or yellowish colour. The worst and cheapest species of stoneware made in this country, is formed of the common clay of which bricks are made. It can be glazed, as the superior kinds, and converted to many different purposes ; but, in an unglazed state, it is used for garden-pots, tiles, and tubes for draining land.