CER- TAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION AND COMBINATION OF EARTHENWARE OR PORCELAIN, FOR THE PURPOSE OF MOSAIC OR TESSELATED WORK
Year: 1839

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ALFRED
SINGER, of Vauxhall, in the County of Surrey, Potter, and HENRY PETHER, of
Wandsworth Road, in the County of Surrey, Artist, send greeting.
. WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Victoria, by Her Letters Patent
under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster, the
Twenty-third day of April, in the second year of Her reign, did give and grant
unto us, the said Alfred Singer and Henry Pether, our exors, adñiors, and
assigns, and such others as we, the said Alfred Singer and Elenry Pether,
our exors and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from
time to time and at all times hereafter during the term of years therein
mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, our Invention of "CER-
TAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PREPARATION AND COMBINATION OF EARTHENWARE OR
PORCELAIN, FOR THE PURPOSE OF MOSAIC OR TESSELATED WORK;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, that we, the said Alfred Singer and
Henry Pether, shall cause a particular description of the nature of our said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under our hands and seals, to be enrolled in Her said Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next immediately after the

page_text: date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, reference being thereunto had,
may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
Alfred Singer and Henry Pether, do hereby declare the nature of our Inven
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference
being had to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters
marked thereon (that is to say):-
Our Invention consists in the mode of producing small rectilinear pieces
of pottery, porcelain, or other plastic material, for the purpose of making
mosaic work, and in the means of combining them by calcareous or other
cements, so as to produce slabs with ornamental devices. The method in
which this is done is as follows:-The clay or body, as it is technically called,
being prepared in the usual manner well known to potters, is reduced into
bats or slices, of any required size and uniform thickness, each bat or slice is
smeared over on both sides with linseed or olive oil to prevent adhesion; they
are then made into piles of any given number and placed in the centre of the
bed of the machine herein-after described and delineated, and the moveable
frame of the machine, on which intersecting wires have been previously
stretched in the required figure, is pressed gently downward, and the wires
pressing through the clay or plastic material cuts the whole of the bats or
slices into uniform figures, and the superfinous clay being removed, these
pieces are placed on shelves or stages to dry. They are afterwards placed in
seggars or earthenware cases, and burnt in a kiln into what is called biscuit,
and being glazed or colored in the manner used for small articles of porcelain
or earthenware, they are sorted into boxes or drawers, and put by for use.
The pieces may be formed of any colored clay used by potters when a glazed
surface is not required. The forming them into slabs is thus performed; a
slab of slate, stone, or other material being procured of the required size is
laid upon a level bench or table, and strips of wood are nailed or screwed
around it in the manner of a frame; these strips of wood project above the
surface of the slab about one-eighth of an inch more than the thickness of the
pieces of which the mosaic is to be formed; the cement, which must not be
one which sets two quickly, is then spread equally over the surface of the slab,
and the tesser or small pieces of pottery, being well soaked in water when a
calcareous cement is used, are placed on its surface in the figure required, and
being very neatly adjusted are pressed down to a uniform level surface, and

page_text: the superfluous cement being removed, the work is left until the cement is set,
The
and the surface being then carefully cleaned, the work is finished.
machine for cutting the tesseræ or small pieces may be square, oblong, oval,
or any other form, but the best form, and the one we use, is a circular frame,
of which the following is a description:-A solid iron bed (A) is provided with
two upright guide rods (B, B,) about twelve inches high; a circle of brass (C)
about ten inches in diameter is made to slide steadily up and down the guide
rods; round the edge of the brass circle (C) a number of iron pegs are
inserted; the pegs resemble pianoforte pegs, and are for a similar purpose,'
viz, stretching the wires tight; within this brass circle (which, for distinction
may be called the peg circle) is another brass circle (D), which may be
called the bridge circle; it supports on a shoulder or rebate a ring of
brass (E), Fig. 2, which performs the oflice of the bridge in a pianoforte, that
is to say, the wires rest upon it; the plane of its edge is below the plane of
the pegs, and the bridge being slightly notched where the wires are to come,
they are readily put into their proper places and keep there. The bridge is
removable from the bridge circle, and by having a number of bridges notched
to various patterns, the respective pieces produced will always be of the same
size and form. To produce pieces having re-entering angles as well as salient
angles, that is to say, having angles whose points point inwards as well as angles
whose points point outwards, as in a pointed star,
>or the form marked
:
by the intersecting lines shown in Figure 1 at (F), we employ thin pieces
of metal, with a shank on which a screw is cut, which are called stretching
knives (G), the knife part being made thin enough to cut its way through the
clay; the stem of these knives running through a moveable clamp (H, Fig. 2),
they can be fixed on any part of the circle (D); the wire is stretched across
the projecting ends or tips of the knives, a small notch being made in the tip
to prevent the wire from slipping; the distance which the stretching knives
project is regulated by two nuts working on their screwed stems.
arrangement will be seen in Fig. 2, and the manner in which the piles of
pieces of clay are placed on the bed of the frame is shown at (I).
This
We claim as our Invention, first, the mode of producing the pieces for the
formation of mosaic work by cutting clay or other plastic material into
rectilinear figures by means of intersecting wires stretched in a frame.
And, secondly, the forming of ornamental slabs of mosaic work by

page_text: cementing together small pieces of porcelain or earthenware of various
figures and colors, on slabs of slate, stone, or other suitable material.
In witness whereof, we, the said Alfred Singer and Henry Pether, have
hereunto set our hands and seals, the Twenty-first day of October, One
thousand cight hundred and thirty-nine.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-first day of October, in
the year of our Lord 1839, the aforesaid Alfred Singer and Henry Pether
came before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the
Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified,
in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine.