Bow porcelain factory

[3] Designs imitated imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains and the wares being produced at Chelsea, at the other end of London.

[10] Bow also produced a good deal of cheaper sprigged tableware in white, with the relief decoration applied in strips after the main body is formed.

[11] Japanese export porcelain in the Kakiemon style was popular at Bow, as at Chelsea and continental factories, especially a design featuring partridges for tableware.

[12] The style of large bold "botanical" designs for flat pieces, derived from botanical book illustrations, were borrowed from Chelsea, and for smaller European flowers Bow had a distinctive style with similarities to French Mennecy-Villeroy porcelain that is "remarkably soft and delicate", though only seen on more expensive pieces.

[15] The large white figure of the Farnese Flora, a high point in the Bow production, was taken, it has been suggested, from a terracotta by Michael Rysbrack.

The largest figures are of General James Wolfe and the Marquess of Granby, no doubt to celebrate their victories in the Seven Years' War, respectively in 1759 and 1760–62.

[20] Bow porcelain adopted the newly invented technique of transfer printing from Battersea enamels in the later 1750s, although it "was never well-established as a mode of decoration", and sometimes mixed with painting on a single piece.

[22] Early patents applied for by Thomas Frye and his silent partner Edward Heylyn[23] in December 1744 (enrolled 1745) and a totally different patent of 1 November 1748 (enrolled March 1749), both apparently intended broadly to cover the uses of kaolin,[24] were traditionally believed not to have resulted in any actual manufacture before about 1749, though Frye's published epitaph claimed he was "the inventor and first manufacturer of porcelain in England."

[30] Newham's Heritage Service owns and curates a significant collection of items from the factory as well as from archaeological digs on the "New Canton" site in 1969.

[31] The New Canton site was also excavated in 1867 (discovering kiln wasters which were tested by a chemist at the direction of Lady Charlotte Schreiber[32]) whilst another dig occurred in 1921 on the opposite side of the High Street.