Apparently the earliest extant record of the porcelain factory established not, as was formerly thought, at Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex, but at Stratford Langthorne, in the parish of West Ham, Essex. See G. H. Tait, 'Some consequences of the Bow Porcelain Special Exhibition', Apollo, lxxi, 1960, pp. 93- 94, and further W. Chaffers, 'The Bow Factory called New Canton', The Art Journal, 1869, pp. 239-243; L. Jewitt, The Ceramic Art of Great Britain, 1878, i, pp. 198-214; Chaffers, Marks and Monograms on European and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain, 13th edition, 1912, pp. 910-936; F. Hurlbutt, Bow Porcelain, 1926; British Museum Exhibition Catalogue, 1959: Bow Porcelain 1774-1776, no. 154.
The binding is of brown suede leather with blind-tooled border. This book belonged to John Bowcock, one of the managers at Bow (d. 1765); subsequently to his brother, William, of Chester, painter; and in the 19th century to Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Acquired by the donor on the 23rd September, 1924 at 'Stevens rooms', Covent Garden.
In the library of the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities at the British Museum are 'the Bowcock Papers' (Bow Porcelain 1774-1776, no. 152), comprising the early letters of John Bowcock and other material relating to the Bow factory, but the larger and more valuable collection of memoranda, etc., from The library of William Bowcock (who had obtained them from his brother, John), after being in the possession of Lady Schreiber in the 19th century, was sold from her collection and is now lost. In the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities is also the private ledger-book for 1769-1770 of William Duesbury, proprietor of the Derby-China Works, who bought up the Bow factory in 1775 or 1776 (Sotheby's sale-cat., 16-18 July 1962, lot 624). Presented by Mrs Dora Radford through her son, Flight Lieut. B. N. Radford.
