John Dwight
(b c. 1635; bur Fulham [now in London], 13 Oct 1703). English potter. He was employed by the natural philosopher and chemist Robert Boyle in Oxford in the 1650s, which evidently engendered his interest in chemistry. From 1661 he held secretarial and legal appointments under four bishops of Chester, but it was not until 1670-71, when living at Wigan, that after many experiments he concluded that 'he had ye secret of making china ware'. He applied for and was granted a patent on 17 April 1672 for making 'transparent Earthen Ware' and 'stone ware' and moved to London, setting up a pottery in Fulham. By March 1676 the production of stoneware bottles after the Rhenish bellarmines, mugs and similar vessels was sufficiently established for Dwight to negotiate a sales agreement with the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of London, who held the London monopoly of the sale of both glassware and stoneware. In June 1684 Dwight obtained a second patent restating his original claims and supplemented with additional 'inventions', including 'opacous redd and darke coloured Porcellane'. Both the extension of the patent on brown stoneware and the 'inventions' led to much inconclusive litigation between Dwight and James Morley of Nottingham, David Elers and John Philip Elers and the Wedgwood family during the period 1693-8. Dwight's production of so-called 'porcellane' appears to have been limited to a number of extremely fine, white, salt-glazed stoneware busts and figures, as in the stoneware bust of Prince Rupert (c. 1675; London, BM), the result of experimental work c. 1673-5. Production of brown stoneware, however, continued at Fulham Pottery for more than 200 years.
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