John Dwight

Covered tankard with embellishments, by John Dwight, Fulham, c. 1685-1690

John Dwight (died 1703) was an English ceramic manufacturer, who founded the Fulham Pottery in London and pioneered the production of stoneware in England.

Early life He is now thought to have been born in the years 1633 to 1636 at Todenham in Gloucestershire, the son of George Dwight, a farmer, and his wife, Joane Greenough. The family then, shortly afterwards, moved to North Hinksey. He studied at Oxford University, and worked as an assistant to Robert Boyle in the later 1650s.

In 1661 Dwight was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester, and the same year he proceeded to the degree of B.C.L. at Christ Church, Oxford. He lived at Chester for some time, where he acted as secretary to successive bishops. although immigrant Dutch or German potters were probably doing so several decades before.

From the earliest days, Fulham was a significant manufacturer of salt-glazed stoneware, initially brown, but later white as well. But Dwight was a very early experimenter with porcelain, approaching the matter scientifically, keeping records of his trials. Excavations in the 1970s uncovered many of his coded test pieces, which the Museum of London feels able to call "porcelain", although such wares never seem to have been produced for sale.

The British Museum contains a number of the best of Dwight’s pieces, of including a bust of Prince Rupert. Other specimens are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

On 3 March 1674 Dwight's six-year-old daughter Lydia died. In her memory he produced two ceramic sculptures, which are among the oldest examples of this type in Europe. In one she is standing in her burial clothes with a skull at her foot. Another half-length figure shows the girl dead in her bed, holding a posy of flowers. These were private images for the family of the dead girl.

In the same year he exhibited similar sculptures to the Royal Society, indicating that he was developing his method of manufacturing salt-glazed stoneware in order to enable it to be used for this purpose. Statues and figures are mentioned in his revised patent of 1684,