| Administrative History | To accompany displays of local china at the Midland Fine Arts and Industrial Exhibition in Derby in 1870, the exhibition committee asked their Honorary Secretary, William Bemrose, and the editor of the Derby Mercury, Alfred Wallis, for a pamphlet on 'Derby China etc.' This copy of the resulting 51 - page booklet was extensively annotated and grangerised by Alfred Wallis between 1870 and about 1910.
Wallis derived most of his additional information from issues of the newspaper of which he was editor. He was connected by family ties with porcelain manufacture in Derby. His father, William Wallace Wallis, was said to be a close friend of Robert Bloor, owner of the Derby factory from 1811 ro 1826. William was the grandson of John and Sarah Wallis, née Yates. Her father John Yates (b1751 d1821) had been a porcelain painter at the Derby factory.
Alfred Wallis resented the popularity of another Derbyshire writer on ceramics, Llewellynn Jewitt, whom he considered virtually a plagiarist. Some remarks in the printed book were said by Wallis to be deliberate errors to trap Jewitt into repeating them. There are disparaging comments on Jewitt's 'The Ceramic Art of Great Britain' [London, 1878] and on Chaffers' 'Keramic Gallery.'
The volume had been re-bound. The accompanying slip-case had been heavily marked by oil or grease. |
| Custodial History | This volume was purchased by public subscription by the Derby Porcelain International Society from a private owner and deposited in Derbyshire Record Office in December 1998. The written permission of the Society is required for publication or reproduction of copies from the original. |