William Cookworthy

Life & Legacy

William Cookworthy (12 April 1705 – 17 October 1780) was an English Quaker minister, a successful pharmacist and an innovator in several fields of technology. He was the first person in Britain to discover how to make hard-paste porcelain, like that imported from China. He subsequently discovered china clay in Cornwall. In 1768 he founded a works at Plymouth for the production of Plymouth porcelain; in 1770 he moved the factory to Bristol, to become Bristol porcelain, before selling it to a partner in 1773. In Kingsbridge there is now a museum named after him which features an exhibition about his life and works.