John Astbury

Although an important figure, as with Thomas Whieldon there is considerable uncertainty over which actual pieces were made in his pottery, and so are Astbury ware.

Astbury was reputed to have masqueraded as an idiot in order to gain access to the works of the Elers brothers, John Philip and David, Dutch emigrants who had settled in Bradwell, Staffordshire, about 1690.

He introduced the use of Bideford pipeclay, and in 1720, happening to notice a hostler blowing powder from a red-hot flintstone pulverised into the eyes of a horse as a remedy, hit upon the application of calcined flint in pottery, which greatly improved his ware.

[2] One son, Thomas Astbury, had begun business in Lane Delph, Stoke, in 1725, and was the first English manufacturer of what came to be called creamware.

One of Wedgwood's biographers attributed his success to his adoption of the important inventions described above, with which she credits Samuel Astbury.