He feigned
sleep while watching the whole process. When he began to make cast
steel, his annual output grew from 900 pounds in 1747 to 11,000
pounds in 1760 and he made a fortune.
Silver was plated over copper from 1751. White metal from tin and
antimony was used from about 1770.
The brass industry was beginning to produce brass from copper and
zinc that was as good as foreign brass. The secret of plate-glass
manufacture came to England in the 1770s.
In 1773, a corporation was set up for the manufacture of plate
glass. It could raise joint-stock because of the great risk and
large expense of the undertaking.
In 1775, chemist William Cookworthy was given a fourteen year
patent for the discovery of certain clay and stone in England from
which he made England's first true porcelain, i.e. that which
could sustain the most extreme degree of fire without melting, and
also had grain as smooth and lustrous, and the transparency and
beauty of color, equal in degree to the best Chinese or Dresden
porcelain.
The import duties on diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds and other
precious stones and jewels was dropped to increase the business of
cutting and polishing them.
The world's first chocolate factory was set up in England in 1728.
The Fanmakers were incorporated in 1709.
A linen company to sell cambricks [a fine white linen] and lawns
[a thin and fine linen] was incorporated in 1763.
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