Worcester Porcelain.

Royal Worcester is world renowned for high quality Porcelain and fine bone china.

In 1751 Dr. Wall and fourteen partners formed the Worcester Porcelain Company with capital of �4,500 the equivalent of �70.000 today.
The factory was situated on the Warmstry Slip, and later taken over by Messrs Barr, (Flight and Barr) where in later times the existing Technical College was built.

Robert Chamberlain was born in Worcester 1736. By 1788 Robert, (one of the famous Worcester Porcelain painter’s,) had set up a rival works, (Chamberlain and Co.) at Diglis, the site of the present works. In 1789 the Royal Warrant was obtained. Robert Chamberlain died in 1798 his two sons who had been made partners in the business by 1796 allowed the company to expand and prosper, rewarded by the Royal Warrant in 1807.

A number of other city factories were producing porcelain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, including Graingers at St. Martin’s Gate, James Hadley’s on Bath Road and the Locke works on Newtown Road.

Today 29/9/06 workers from the Worcester Porcelaine factory finished their last shift and the factory closed down. This ends over 200 years of production of this fine product. This old Worcester company employed many hundreds of workers but gradually imported products have taken workers jobs.

The factory site has been earmarked for waterside homes, offices, and shops.

Chamberlain and Co. Royal Porcelain works Worcester.
March 1st 1851.

Rules and regulations to be observed by all persons employed in this company.

Time.
1. All persons employed in this factory to assemble at Half past six o’clock throughout the year.
2. Breakfast time, half past eight to nine.
3. Dinner hour one to two.pm.
4. Everydays work reckoned to terminate at six, PM.
5. All work not ready to be passed through the warehouse by six o’clock, PM on Friday, not reckoned for until the week following.
6. Half an hour allowed for assembling in a morning, after which the entrance door will be locked; and a quarter of an hour at breakfast and dinner.
7. On Saturdays, manufacturing labour to cease at four, PM, from which time to hour for paying wages, hands to employ themselves in cleaning rooms and benches, putting tools, in order throughout the works.
8. Wages commence paying at five o’clock, PM on Saturdays throughout the year.

Conduct.
1. Swearing and bad language strictly forbidden at all times.
2. During work hours silence and order are required, and at all time steadiness and propriety of conduct recommended.
3. Sobriety, Civility and punctuality are indispensable for length of service.
4. Useful reading at all times approved. All immoral publications and prints found in the works will be destroyed, and their owners discharged.
5. “On no pretence whatever” is intoxicating drink of any description allowed in the works, and smoking is strictly prohibited.
6. Such of the hands as take meals on the premises, are required to do so in their respective workshops, or in the case of girls in the room appropriated to their exclusive use.
7. Any person found loitering in another working room will be fined unless he can give satisfactory reasons.
8. Boys are not allowed to play on the premises.

An Etching of The Royal Porcelain Works in 1916.

The old Worcester Porcelain works below the South Quay. Max

This area was developed to build a carpark and the Worcester College of Technology.