Nantgarw Porcelain

The manufacture of porcelain at Nantgarw was begun in 1813 by William Billingsley and Samuel Walker. Billingsley was born in Derby in 1758, and became an outstanding painter on porcelain at the Derby works, but left there to work in Mansfield and later at Torksey, Linconshire, where it's thought he first came into contact with Samuel Walker.

Walker and Sarah Billingsley married in 1812 and the following year the foursome arrived at Nantgarw with £250 between them to start production according to Billingsley's own secret formula. Owing to the nature of the paste however, many pieces were distorted or completely ruined during the first firing, and with so little resources, the two partners were soon in financial difficulties. They went to work at the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea where they continued to produce using the Nantgarw recipe. In 1817 they returned to Nantgarw to try again but with the same result. In 1820 Billingsley and Walker left Nantgarw to work for Coal Port. Billingsley died there in 1828 and Walker later emigrated to America where he established the Temperence Hill Pottery in West Troy, New York.

Rare pieces of Nantgarw Porcelain still exists, brilliantly white and highly translucent - a cup and saucer can fetch several thousand pounds at auction. Clay tobacco pipes were produced at Nantgarw in 1835 by W.H.Pardoe. The business closed in 1920 but at its peak was producing around 10,000 pipes per week.