English Bone China

Bone china takes its name from the fact that finely powdered cattle bones are added to the mixture of clay and ground china stone. It was the successful English substitute for the kaolin porcelain of China. A century before, these Chinese dishes had come into favor with Europeans but, because of the long hazardous voyage, they were very expensive.

By 1750 various English potteries were trying to devise a substitute. The Bow pottery in Essex, that of Chelsea, close to London, Derby, Worcester, and Bristol, all tried unsuccessfully to create a satisfactory ware that could be made economically enough for the popular market.

It was finally accomplished about 1800 by Josiah Spode II. He had succeeded his father, Josiah I, known as "Old" Spode, in 1797. The elder Spode, who had earlier worked for Josiah Wedgwood, established his pottery in 1770. He was particularly successful in making the cobalt blue dishes of earthenware, long a chief product of the Staffordshire area. At the same time he started experiments with bone ash in the search for a substitute for the Chinese porcelain clay. His son continued this and perfected it, using china clay and feldspar mixed with bone ash in nearly equal proportions. It resulted in a substance halfway between the hard paste of China and the soft paste of eighteenth-century English porcelain factories. The durability of the one was present as well as the softer quality of the other. Its color was halfway between the bluish white of the Oriental and the creamy white of the soft paste. It was also less liable to chip than the hard-paste porcelain.

A practical and economical solution of the porcelain formula problem, bone china became standard with all English potteries and, with only minor changes in proportions, is still made in quantity. At the time Spode was perfecting this type of china, the factories at Worcester and Derby were the important producers, but it was not long before the bone china trade shifted to Staffordshire where Spode and his competitors, 1VIinton, Davenport, and others, developed this new product.

The Spode pottery sold large quantities of this finer ware for export to the United States. Josiah II had as a partner William Copeland, originally his traveling salesman. Both men died within a year of each other-1826 and 1827. They were succeeded briefly by Josiah III who died in 1833. The next owner was William Taylor Copeland> an alderman of the City of London and later its Lord Mayor. He changed the pottery's mark from "Spode" to "Copeland" and then to "Copeland and Garrett, Late Spode." Finally the mark became a small oblong lettered "Spode" with "Copeland" above. This pottery is still in existence and very active.

During the years when much of the china now considered antique was being made, from 1800 to 1860, marking was a casual matter, with the potter deciding how much or how little of his wares should bear the impress of the firm. The Derby factory mark, for instance, was a crown above a capital D, but a good proportion of old Derby bears no mark. Minton, Spode, and Davenport were usually marked, although all the pieces of a large dinner service might not be.

Josiah Spode II favored Chinese designs of exotic birds against a floral background, but did not neglect the English type of decoration. Among his most pleasing patterns are those of familiar English birds painted in their natural habitat. These simple scenes are painted in naturalistic colors. An added decoration is a raised floral pattern in white on plate and compote borders. Here each piece bears the name "Spode" impressed.