page_title: Eleanor Coade
section_title: Artificial stone business
hierarchical_section_title: Eleanor Coade / Artificial stone business
caption_attribution_description: An allegory of agriculture: Ceres reclining amidst a collection of farm implements, she holds a sheaf of wheat and a scythe. Engraving by W. Bromley, 1789, after a sculptural panel by Mrs E. Coade. Iconographic Collections Keywords: William Bromley; Eleanor Coade
context_page_description: Eleanor Coade was a British businesswoman known for manufacturing Neoclassical statues, architectural decorations and garden ornaments made of Lithodipyra or Coade stone for over 50 years from 1769 until her death. She should not be confused or conflated with her mother, also named Eleanor.
  Lithodipyra was a high-quality, durable moulded weather-resistant, ceramic stoneware; statues and decorative features from this still look almost new today. Coade did not invent 'artificial stone', as various inferior quality precursors had been both patented and manufactured over the previous forty years, but she likely perfected both the clay recipe and the firing process.
  She combined high-quality manufacturing and artistic taste, together with entrepreneurial, business and marketing skills, to create the overwhelmingly successful stone products of her age. She produced stoneware for St George's Chapel, Windsor; The Royal Pavilion, Brighton; Carlton House, London and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Shortly after her death, her company produced a large quantity of stoneware used in the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.
context_section_description: In late 1769, at the age of 36, Eleanor Coade bought Daniel Pincot's struggling artificial stone business at Kings Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall, Lambeth, a site now occupied by the Royal Festival Hall. She took charge and developed this business as "Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory". Within two years (1771), she sacked Pincot for "representing himself as the chief proprietor". The ceramic stoneware product was marketed as "Coade's Lithodipyra", for the next 50 years.
  Pincot's business may have been related to that run nearby by Richard Holt, who had taken out two patents in 1722: one for a kind of liquid metal or stone, and another for making china without the use of clay. There were many start-up 'artificial stone' businesses in the early 18th century, of which only Mrs Coade's succeeded. She manufactured products from ceramic in a process to look like stone, and it proved highly durable.
  John Bacon, a talented sculptor, had worked for Mrs Coade since 1769. In 1771 she appointed him as works supervisor; he directed both model-making and design until his death in 1799. His neo-classical models won awards from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and royal patronage. Their joint success meant that the Coade Artificial Stone Manufactory gained the business of all the eminent Georgian architects, including Robert Adam, James Wyatt, Samuel Wyatt, Sir William Chambers, John Nash, and John Soane. Throughout this period of the late 18th century, Mrs Coade also employed designers and modellers such as John Devaere (John De Vaere (1755–1830)) before he joined Josiah Wedgwood in 1790,), John Charles Felix Rossi, J. G. Bubb, Thomas Dubbin, Benjamin West (later a successful painter), and Joseph Panzetta (1789–1830). The latter worked for Coade for more than 26 years; his most prominent work was Lord Hill's Column in Shrewsbury.
  After 1780 Coade was commissioned by King George III to make the Gothic screen (and possibly also replace part of the ceiling) of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
  In 1784 she created a comprehensive catalogue of 746 designs produced by the company. It included statues; busts; whole panels; friezes; fascia; medallions; paterae; coats of arms; balusters; pinnacles; chimneypieces; furniture; interior ornaments; and mouldings. As ceramic moulds could be reused, some had a working life of over 50 years, leading to high efficiency in production.
  In 1799 Mrs Coade recruited her cousin John Sealy as a partner in her business. (He was the son of her mother's sister Mary Enchmarch Sealy.) The company then traded as 'Coade and Sealy' until his death, aged 64, in October 1813, when it reverted to 'Coade'. She also opened a show room, Coade's Gallery, on Pedlar's Acre at the Surrey end of Westminster Bridge Road to display her products.
  In 1813 Coade recruited William Croggon as manager to succeed Sealy; he was a sculptor from Grampound in Cornwall. (He was a distant cousin by marriage, the brother-in-law of Coade's cousin William Oke, son of her aunt Frances (née Enchmarch)), Croggon worked as manager until Coade's death.
  At that time, he bought the firm from her estate for circa £4,000, although he had hoped to inherit it.  From 1814 onwards, Croggon paid rates for the factory. The business continued to be successful long after Coade's death, but Croggon went bankrupt in 1833 because of both changing tastes and the failure of the Duke of York to pay his debts.
caption: An allegory of agriculture: Ceres reclining amidst a collection of farm implements, she holds a sheaf of wheat and a scythe. Engraving by W. Bromley, 1789, after a sculptural panel by Mrs E. Coade.
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