William Cookworthy

William Cookworthy (* 12 April 1705 in Devon, England; † 17 October 1780 in Plymouth) was an English pharmacist, chemist and inventor. He is considered a pioneer of the kaolin industry and porcelain production in England.

At the beginning of the 1740s, Cookworthy began to engage in the production of porcelain. After the Germans J. F. Böttger and W. E. Tschirnhaus had pioneered porcelain production in Europe, William Cookworthy was the discoverer of regional deposits of kaolin, a raw material necessary for porcelain production. In 1746, in Cornwall, he discovered miners patching their kilns with white clay, known locally as "moorstone". Based on his prior knowledge, he suspected that this clay would be suitable for porcelain production and took samples. His experiments with the materials were successful: he was granted a patent in 1968 for "porcelain, newly invented by him, consisting of moorstone and growan or growan clay." He set up a porcelain factory in Plymouth not much later. Cookworthy's patent was later sold to Josiah Wedgwood.