Excepting to the trade, and to some of the old inhabitants, it is not
generally known that Martin Randall established China Works at Madeley,
and made porcelain similar to that of Nantgarw and little if at all
inferior to old Sevres porcelain. He and his brother Edward were
Caughley men; he left there to go to Derby. He afterwards went to
Pinxton, and thence with Mr. Robins, a Pinxton man, to London, where they
entered into partnership and carried on business. They were supplied
with Nantgarw white china by Mr. Mortlock, till Mr. Rose cut off the
supply from the Welsh Works, by engaging Billingsley and Walker to make
it for himself alone at the Coalport Works. They still continued to
carry on business at Islington, where they erected buildings suitable,
and fired the ware in box kilns with charcoal.
About this time the demand was great with connoisseurs among the
aristocracy for old Sevres china; and the London dealers, finding that it
was not obtainable in sufficient quantities to meet the demand for highly
decorated specimens, hit upon the expedient of employing agents in Paris
to buy up Sevres china in white for the purpose of having it painted in
London, as Nantgarw had been, and selling it to their customers as the
bona fide productions of Sevres. Slightly painted patterns too were
procured, and the colours got off with fluoric acid, and rich and
expensive paintings, grounds, and gilding substituted.
About the year 1826 they dissolved partnership and Mr. Randall came to
Madeley, where he occupied a house in Park Lane, now the residence of the
Wesleyan minister. He then took more commodious premises at the lower
end of Madeley, where he erected enamelling, biscuit, and other kilns,
and made and finished his own ware. Thomas Wheeler, William Roberts, and
F. Brewer, were his potters; Philip Ballard, Robert Grey, and the present
writer, were painters there, and Enos Raby was ground layer. John Fox of
Coalbrookdale, William Dorsett, of Madeley, also were with Mr. Randall
for a short time. Not having had experience in the making of china,
great mistakes were committed, and heavy losses sustained. We have known
a biscuit kiln fired till tea-pots and cups and saucers were melted into
a mass before a trial was drawn, crow bars being necessary to remove
them; in some instances they assumed the most fantastic forms. At other
times the ware would be short fired in the biscuit kiln and would take up
so much glaze that on coming out of the glaze kiln it would fly off in
splinters. These wastrels were buried, broken up, or thrown into the
canal, to be out of sight.
Mr. Randall however, as the result of repeated and persevering
experiments, succeeded in producing a fret body with a rich glaze which
bore so close a resemblance to old Sevres china that connoisseurs and
famous judges failed to distinguish them. He refused however, from
conscientious motives, to put the Sevres mark, the initials of Louis
Louis, crossed at the bottom, which was done with less hesitation at
Coalport with much more feeble imitations. When introduced on one
occasion to a London dealer, of the name of Frost, who had a shop in the
Strand, as Mr. Martin Randall’s nephew, the dealer in old china observed
that the old Quaker made the best imitation of Sevres that ever was made,
but added, “he never could be got to put the double L on it, and we
cannot sell it as Sevres.” We remarked that he was “too conscientious to
do so,” upon which he replied, “O, d—n conscience; there is no conscience
in business.”
Mr. Randall had less hesitation however in putting the Sevres mark on
what was known to be Sevres; and he did very much for Mortlock, Jarman,
and Baldock, who had agents in Paris, attending all sales where old
Sevres was to be sold, in redecorating it in the most elaborate and
costly manner. The less scrupulous London agents however did not
hesitate to pass it off as being really the work throughout of Sevres
artists. Indeed they have been known to have boxes of china going up
from Madeley, sent on to Dover, to be redirected as coming from France,
inviting connoisseurs to come and witness them being unpacked on their
arrival, as they represented, from Paris. A little entertainment would
be got up, and supposing themselves to be the first whose eyes looked on
the rich goods after they left the French capital, where it would be
represented, perhaps, that they had been bought of the Duc-de—or of
Madame some one, after having been in the possession of royalty, they
would buy freely.
Sevres porcelain fetched high prices then, but it has risen higher in the
market, even since, and has gone on rising to the present time. In 1850
cups and saucers fetched from £25 to £30 each, and bowls £66 or £70.
Three oval vases and covers at Lord Pembroke’s sale fetched £1020.
Prices have however since gone up; and at Mr. Bernal’s sale a pair of
rose Dubarry vases sold for 1850 guineas; and cups and saucers for £100.
Single plates have since sold for £200; vases for 500 or 600 guineas
each, and cups and saucers for 150, guineas. A year ago a set of three
Jardiniers fetched at Christie’s, by auction, £10,000!
We remember seeing an ornament at the Marquis of Anglesey’s at _Beau
Desert_ which we were assured was old Sevres, and had been purchased at a
great price on the continent, but which we recognised as one of our own
painting at Madeley. A man can always tell his own painting; but it is
not an easy matter for another however experienced sometimes to do so.
An amusing instance occurred at Coalport. Mr. F. W. Rose who had been
conversant from a child with china, on one occasion bought a vase,
painted with birds, believing it to be old Sevres, but which was made at
the Coalport Works and painted by the present writer at Madeley. Mr.
Rose, sending for us down to the office said, “here, Randall, is a vase I
have given a good price for, which is the right thing; can you do
anything like it?” Our reply was, it would be strange if we could not,
as we did that when a lad, adding that it was made at his own
manufactory, that it was modelled by George Aston, and purchased out of
the warehouse, in the white, by T. Martin Randall. We need scarcely say
that he was very much astonished on finding he had been duped by a London
china dealer with a piece of his own ware. It was put out of sight; but
the late Mr. Pugh did not forget occasionally to remind his partner of
the incident.
Mr. Randall removed from Madeley to Shelton, in the Potteries, for the
greater convenience of carrying on his works. He was invited by the late
Herbert Minton to become a partner, and to make his ware for the benefit
of both at his extensive works at Stoke. Age however, and a longing for
retirement led him to decline, and he soon afterwards retired to a
cottage at Barleston, where he died, and was buried, in a sunny spot of
his own choosing, within sound of the murmuring waters of the Trent. He
was a good man; one holding large and liberal views, and one who took an
active part in various social and religious movements of the day, being
an active promoter more particularly of Temperance Societies, when first
established in this country. Specimens of his ware are much prized and
sought after by collectors. A fine specimen with torquoise ground is in
the possession of Henry Dickinson Esq.
The chief beauty of Mr. Randall’s porcelain, like that of other fret
bodies, or _pate tendre_ china, was that it admitted of a complete
amalgamation of the painting with the glaze, and also of a richness and
depth of colour, as in the case of torquoise, not to be produced on
ordinary china. It had too that waxy whiteness and mellow transparency
for which old porcelain was distinguished.