"A" Class Porcelain c.1740's:
A brief history of "A" Class Porcelain
(Further more detailed pages will be added about each factory over time).
"A" Class porcelain c.1740's:
The "A" Class group of porcelains are a small, extremely rare group which are characterised with a letter "A" mark to the underside. They are believed to date from around the 1740's, although opinions differ in this respect.
The "A" Class porcelain does not seem to correspond to any known factory, there have been various suggestions made, such as the "A" standing for the Duke of Argyll, or that they could be the very first wares made by Thomas Frye & Edward Heylin of Bow with regards to their original patent using "unaker, the produce of the Chirokee nation in America."
This latter suggestion appears to have gained more weight recently after the original patent was followed to produce a number of small porcelain beakers which were then chemically analysed and found to be very close to "A" Class wares (click here).
It has been suggested that reference made in letters written by William Cookworthy, the proprietor of the Plymouth factory, with regards to samples of a new kind of porcelain that he had examined, were references to "A" Class wares, although that is to a large part mere conjecture.
Opinion remains divided over the source & date of "A" Class porcelain.
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