14 Facts About William Cookworthy

William Cookworthy was an English Quaker minister, a successful pharmacist and an innovator in several fields of technology.

William Cookworthy was the first person in Britain to discover how to make hard-paste porcelain, like that imported from China.

William Cookworthy's father, called William, was a weaver and his mother was Edith, the daughter of John and Margaret Debell of St Martin-by-Looe in east Cornwall: they had married in 1704.

William Cookworthy had been offered an apprenticeship, at no cost, by the Bevan Brothers, two Quaker apothecaries, with a successful business in London.

William Cookworthy moved to Plymouth, where he set up a pharmacy as Bevan and Cookworthy.

William Cookworthy eventually brought his brothers Philip and Benjamin into the partnership and bought out the Bevans' interest in 1745.

William Cookworthy became prominent among Devon Quakers, being appointed as an Elder.

The manufacture of porcelain was at the time attracting great attention in England, and while the factories at Bow, Chelsea, Worcester and Derby were introducing the artificial glassy porcelain, William Cookworthy, following the accounts from China of the Jesuit priest Pere d'Entrecolles, spent many years in searching for English materials similar to those used in China.

In Plymouth, records suggest that William Cookworthy did not take any apprentices, but he did employ a young Henry Bone, who after the factory was moved to Bristol about 1770, was apprenticed to Richard Champion who with others became the owner of what became the Bristol Porcelain Manufactory.

William Cookworthy was an associate of John Smeaton, who lodged at his house when he was engaged in building the third Eddystone Lighthouse.

William Cookworthy helped Smeaton with the development of hydraulic lime, which was essential to the successful building of the lighthouse.

William Cookworthy's initial reaction to Swedenborg's works was one of disgust, but with persistence, he was convinced of their merits and was a persuasive advocate.

Hartley and William Cookworthy later visited Swedenborg at his lodgings in Clerkenwell shortly before Swedenborg's death.

William Cookworthy visited Daniel Gumb, the "Mountain Philosopher" who lived amongst the rocks at Cheesewring.