William Cookworthy
William Cookworthy ( born April 12, 1705 Kingsbridge, Devon, England; † October 17, 1780 in Plymouth ) was an English chemist, chemist and inventor. He pioneered both the kaolin industry in Cornwall and Devon, as well as the production of porcelain in England.
Youth
William Cookworthy was the son of William Weber Cookworthy from Kingsbridge. His mother, Edith, born Debell, came from St Martin -by- Looe in Cornwall. He was born the eldest of seven children. His siblings were named Sarah (* 1706), Jacob ( * 1709), Susannah (* 1711), Mary ( * 1714), Philip ( * 1716) and Benjamin (* 1717).
Cookworthys father died in 1718. The family lost their modest prosperity through the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720. Cookworthy had to stop his schooling. Instead, he got the opportunity free of charge for an apprenticeship in the pharmacy of the brothers Timothy and Silvanus Bevan in London. The Bevans were Quakers, as well as Cookworthy and his family. Due to lack of funding had Cookworthy the road from Kingsbridge to London on foot. As part of his teaching, he earned next to the pharmaceutical and chemical knowledge and skills in metallurgy, Latin, French and Greek.
Pharmacists in Plymouth
After completing his apprenticeship in 1726 he opened his teaching men the offer in Plymouth, a port city on the south coast of Devon and situated directly on the border with Cornwall to work in their wholesale pharmacy. Cookworty accepted this offer and was so successful that he was inducted in 1735 as a partner with his work. The wholesale was called off because Bevan and Cookworthy. 1746 was the Bevans be paid. Cookworthy instead took his brothers Philip and Benjamin in the company on which bore the name of Messrs William Cookworthy and Company as of that date.
1735 married Sarah Berry Cookworthy from Wellington. With her he had five daughters: Lydia (* 1736), Sarah (* 1738), Mary ( * 1740) and the twins Elizabeth and Susannah (* 1743). Sarah Cookworthy died 1746.
Kaolin and porcelain
After unsuccessful attempts had been made for centuries in Europe to imitate Chinese porcelain, was the first time in December 1707, Johann Friedrich Böttger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus in Dresden, prepare a pot of hard porcelain. However, the production process could be kept secret for years to come. In the meantime, the French Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d' Entrecolles, who lived in China since 1698, described in two letters from the years 1712 and 1722 details from the observed by him in Jingdezhen porcelain production, including the use of two types of clay, kaolin and Pe - do - se, a feldspar and mica rock.
The extreme southwest England, starting in the east with the Dartmoor to the western tip at Land's End, by partially shape the landscape and large areas occurring granite deposits. Both feldspar and mica mineral components of granite. Kaolinite as a rock- forming mineral of the kaolin in turn is a weathering product of feldspar among others.
The findings of the French priest were Cookworthy known when he started in the early 1740s to deal with the production of porcelain. On one of his business trips to Cornwall Cookworthy discovered in June 1746 during a visit to the westerly of Helston Great Work mine the Godolphin family that local miners mending their ovens with a fine white clay. He took the place of origin of the material, the nearby Tregonning Hill, samples, because he suspected that the material is suitable for the production of porcelain. In the following years Cookworthy spent a lot of time to look at other sites in Cornwall and Devon for additional occurrences of this kind, and to experiment with the materials found there. The experiments with the found materials that have been referred to locally as Moorstone, growan, growan Clay or Stone growan were successful: Cookworthy succeeded first scheduling in England to produce a porcelain that could take it to the appearance and quality of Chinese ceramics. On March 17, 1768 he was granted a patent for " a kind of porcelain, newly invented by him, consisting of Moorstone and growan or growan - Clay. "
At least in the same year founded Cookworthy with multiple stakeholders, a porcelain factory in Plymouth, the Plymouth China Works. One of the partners, Richard Champion of Bristol, was managing director. The company mainly produced tea sets, pitchers and vases. Financially involved was Thomas Pitt, later Lord Camelford, a nephew of William Pitt. On land that belonged to Pitt, located in the hamlet Carloggas, northwest of St Austell on the edge of Hens Barrows, Cookworthy had discovered a kaolin deposits which contained very little black mica and was therefore particularly suitable for fine china. In the immediate vicinity also Clay Stone was to meet a Pe - do - se -like, fine-grained, partially kaolinisiertes, low iron but feldspatreiches rock, which could also be used for the manufacture of porcelain. Pitt Cookworthy support in his efforts and was also financially involved in the porcelain factory in Plymouth. Already in 1770 the porcelain factory was moved to Bristol and combined with a local pottery.
Other activities
John Smeaton developed jointly referred Cookworthy with a waterproof mortar, hydraulic lime. This invention made it possible Smeaton to build the new standing on a small rock in the sea south of Portsmouth Eddystone Lighthouse 1756-1759.
As a pharmacist in a port city Cookworthy had regular access to sailors. When the British ship's doctor James Lind showed in a study that the dreaded vessel disease scurvy could be controlled by intake of vitamin C, he campaigned for the dissemination of this knowledge among the officers and made sure that on the ships vitamin C foods such as lemons or sauerkraut were included.
Together with the Rev. Thomas Hartley Cookworthy translated several theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg from the Latin into English.
Later years
1774 Cookworthy sold his shares of the porcelain factory as well as the patent on Champion. He received the purchase price, a license fee for each item sold in the future.
Cookworthy died on October 17 in 1780. He was buried in Plymouth in the family vault in the cemetery in Westwell Street.
Aftermath
The pharmacy in Plymouth went to Cookworthys death of his brother Benjamin, and after his death in 1785 Francis Fox, the son of his daughter Sarah over. After several owners and name changes it existed until 1974, most recently under the name of Messrs. Balkwill & Company ( Chemists ) Ltd..
Richard Champion tried in 1777 to achieve an extension of the patent, but achieved only a partial success, which it to use other manufacturers, including Josiah Wedgwood enabled, the raw materials from Cornwall and Devon for their own ceramic products. The cost of licensing disputes, as well as the loss of the monopoly brought Champions operation in financial difficulties. In 1782 he sold the company and license to the New Hall Porcelain Company of Shelton, now a suburb of Stoke -on-Trent, Staffordshire. There he himself was also for some years engaged in the manufacture of porcelain. Later emigrated Champion to Carolina, where he also died.
Tregonning Hill and Godolphin Great Work Mine are now part of the World Heritage mining landscape of Cornwall and West Devon.
Cookworthys findings on the usability of the kaolin deposits in Cornwall and Devon have enabled the development of a thriving mining industry in these areas. Since a large part of the material obtained was exported by ship and will last, however, only through the ports of Fowey and to a lesser extent on par, additional jobs and infrastructure developed accordingly in the nearby port cities. This development made it possible that the economic loss associated with the about the same time early demise of Erzbergbaues in Cornwall could be at least partially offset. The annual production of kaolin from Cornwall and West Devon was after the 1988 maximum value reached 3.28 million tons. In 2008, 1.36 million tons, of which 88 percent were exported. The United Kingdom is the largest producer of kaolin within the EU and the fourth largest in the world. The promotion is limited to one day to the region north- west of St. Austell, also known as Hens Barrow, as well as to areas on the southwest corner of the Dartmoores. Other occurrences are not currently being exploited. Due to the large-scale excavations on the one hand and mounds of excavated material, often in the form of high pointed cones, on the other hand Kaolinabbau in these regions is shape the landscape.