The Cambrian Pottery was founded in 1764 by William Coles in Swansea

Swansea

Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

, Glamorganshire, Wales.

In 1790, John Coles, son of the founder, went into partnership with George Haynes

George Haynes

George Haynes , British entrepreneur, pottery manufacturer, banker, and newspaper proprietor of Swansea, Wales-Early career:Haynes was born in 1745 to a Quaker family with its origins in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, although his exact place of birth and continuing religious affiliations are...

, who introduced new business strategies based on the ideas of Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...

.

Lewis Weston Dillwyn

Lewis Weston Dillwyn

Lewis Weston Dillwyn, FRS was a British porcelain manufacturer, naturalist and Member of Parliament.He was born in Walthamstow, Essex, the eldest son of William Dillwyn and Sarah Dillwyn...

 became a partner in 1802 and sole owner when George Haynes left the pottery in 1810.

In 1811 Dillwyn took T.& J. Bevington into partnership, the company becoming known as Dillwyn & Co. Between 1814 and 1817, Dillwyn produced the renowned 'Swansea Porcelain'.

Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn

Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn

Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn was a Welsh industrialist and Liberal politician.Dillwyn was born in Swansea, Wales, the second son of Lewis Weston Dillwyn and Mary Dillwyn . His father had been sent to Swansea by his father William, to take over the management of the Cambrian Pottery, and lived at Sketty...

 (Lewis Weston Dillwyn's son) ran the pottery from 1836. He bought out the neighbouring Glamorgan Pottery

Glamorgan Pottery

The Glamorgan Pottery was a porcelain china works located in Swansea, Wales, from 1813 until 1838, producing various earthenware products.Works manager of the adjacent Cambrian Pottery started the works in 1813, having fallen out with Cambrian owner Lewis Weston Dillwyn...

 in 1838. Many of the redundant staff went on to help found the South Wales Pottery at Llanelli, the competition from which, played a part in the ultimate demise of the Cambrian Pottery in 1870.

Through its history, the Cambrian employed some notable artists, such as Thomas Baxter

Thomas Baxter (painter)

Thomas Baxter Jnr. was an English porcelain painter, and a watercolour painter and illustrator.-Life and work:...

, Thomas Pardoe

Thomas Pardoe

A talented enameler, who was noted for flower painting. He was born in Derby on 3 July 1770 and was apprenticed at the Derby porcelain factory in the 1780s. Later moving to Worcester. He painted creamware at Swansea between 1795 and 1809, coming under the influence of Lewis Weston Dillwyn...

, William Pollard, Thomas Rothwell (1740-1807) and William Weston Young

William Weston Young

William Weston Young Quaker Entrepreneur of Bristol and Glamorganshire; artist, botanist, wreck-raiser, surveyor, potter, and inventor of the firebrick....

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The pottery closed in 1870, when the site was sold to Cory, Yeo & Co.

Sources

• E. Morton-Nance, The Pottery and Porcelain of Swansea and Nantgarw (1943)