In the mid-1840s he left Cubitts to be independent and exhibited his imitation marble panels at the Great Exhibition of 1851, which won him a prize. At the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1855 he won a gold medal, but felt obliged to carry out public demonstrations of his craft in the exhibition hall after accusations that he was using some type of fraudulent transfer technique. On his return he bought a house in Baker Street and set up his own specialist decorating company.