Bow porcelain factory

The Bow porcelain factory (active c. 1747–64 and closed in 1776) was an emulative rival of the Chelsea porcelain factory in the manufacture of early soft-paste porcelain in Great Britain. The factory was located near Bow, in what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The local council owns a significant collection, which is in the care of the borough's Heritage and Arts Service.

Designs imitated imported Chinese and Japanese porcelains and the wares being produced at Chelsea, at the other end of London. Meissen figures were copied, both directly and indirectly through Chelsea. Quality was notoriously uneven; the warm, creamy body of Bow porcelains is glassy and the glaze tends towards ivory.

Early patents applied for by Thomas Frye and his silent partner Edward Heylyn 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, do not seem 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." "Heylyn and Frye do not appear to have had a factory of their own, but probably carried on their experiments at a factory already existing at Bow, having first secured the services of a well-skilled workman whose name has not been preserved, and who may have been the real inventor of English porcelain," a writer noted in 1911.

The earliest Bow porcelains are of soft-paste incorporating bone ash, forming a phosphatic body that was a precursor of bone china. By 1750 Frye was serving as manager of the factory, under new owners, John Crowther and Weatherby. In 1753 they were advertising in Birmingham for painters and a modeller. Sources for the early history of the Bow manufactory were collected by Lady Charlotte Guest in memoranda, diaries, and notebooks, including a diary of John Bowcocke, who was employed in the works as a commercial manager and traveller. The works, designated 'New Canton,' were sited on the Essex side of the River Lea, close to Bow Bridge.

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