21 Facts About Eleanor Coade

Eleanor Coade combined high-quality manufacturing and artistic taste, together with entrepreneurial, business and marketing skills, to create the overwhelmingly successful stone products of her age.

Eleanor Coade produced stoneware for St George's Chapel, Windsor; The Royal Pavilion, Brighton; Carlton House, London and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

In 1784 an uncle, Samuel Eleanor Coade, gave her Belmont House, a holiday villa in Lyme Regis, her late father's town of origin.

Eleanor Coade was known to travel around Tiverton in a sedan chair.

In early 1769 the family were living at St Thomas Apostles Street when her father George Eleanor Coade died that year, after having gone bankrupt for the second time.

From around 1769, when the daughter Eleanor Coade bought an artificial stone factory, she lived on the factory premises at Narrow Wall, Lambeth.

In 1784 Eleanor Coade was given Belmont House, Lyme Regis, Dorset, by her uncle Samuel Coade.

Eleanor Coade never married and died on 18 November 1821 in Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, London.

Eleanor Coade's body is buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, which was used by many Nonconformists.

Eleanor Coade is commemorated by the Coade Stone, placed under Westminster Bridge alongside the footpath to Royal Festival Hall, which now occupies the site of her factory at "Narrow Wall".

The Eleanor Coade Stone is the bottom stone of a horse-mill used in her factory, a wheel-shaped millstone with a prominent internal axle lip.

In late 1769, at the age of 36, Eleanor Coade bought Daniel Pincot's struggling artificial stone business at Kings Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall, Lambeth, a site now occupied by the Royal Festival Hall.

Eleanor Coade took charge and developed this business as "Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory".

Eleanor Coade manufactured products from ceramic in a process to look like stone, and it proved highly durable.

In 1799 Mrs Eleanor Coade recruited her cousin John Sealy as a partner in her business.

Eleanor Coade opened a show room, Coade's Gallery, on Pedlar's Acre at the Surrey end of Westminster Bridge Road to display her products.

In 1813 Eleanor Coade recruited William Croggon as manager to succeed Sealy; he was a sculptor from Grampound in Cornwall.

Eleanor Coade was a hard-working individual who concentrated on methodical procedures to produce consistently high quality products.

Eleanor Coade was the first and only person to succeed in the artificial stone business, thanks to a combination of managerial skills, entrepreneurial flair, and a talent for marketing and public relations.

Eleanor Coade closely supervised both the preparation of clay mixtures and the firing process for all her products.

Eleanor Coade cultivated strong business relationships with respected architects and designers, as she could produce multiple copies of their designs.