BY JOHN MARRIOTT BLASHFIELD, STAMFORD, DATED 1870

John Marriott Blashfield, remarked in his essay "Account of the History and Manufacture of Ancient and Modern Terracotta" (1855) that he had been inspired to make a kind of artificial stoneware by seeing the pieces for which Mark Blanchard had been awarded prizes at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He obtained Letters Patent in 1854 for 'Improvements in the Manufacture of China, Pottery, Bricks, and other articles, made for the most part of Clay', and again in 1860 for 'Improvements in Burning Pottery and China Ware'. He had a factory in Millwall, Poplar, with a sales outlet at No.1 Praed Street, Edgeware Road, London, but moved to Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1859 to be nearer to the clay-beds. He won medals for Terracotta, in the Glass and Pottery and Architectural Objects classes at the International Exhibition of 1862, and a silver medal at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867. One of the most important commissions with which he was involved was supplying architectural terracotta for the decoration for the new Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. But this undertaking stretched his resources too far and by 1874 the Stamford Terracotta Company works, machinery as well as models and moulds, were for sale; it finally closed in 1875.