Details of Sculptor

Surname

Coade Factory

Alternative Surname

First Name

of Lambeth

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1769-1840

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Eleanor Coade’s artificial stone manufactory produced a vast range of architectural and garden ornaments, decorative details and furnishings for interiors and also a number of funerary monuments and commemorative statues. The factory maintained high standards of design and production throughout its 70-year history and was employed by London’s leading architects, Robert Adam, James Wyatt, John Nash and Sir John Soane. Coade, John Sealy, William Croggon and his son, Thomas John Croggon were all in turn directors of the business.
She was born in Exeter on 14 June 1733, the daughter of George Coade, a woollen cloth finisher from Lyme Regis, Dorset, and his wife Eleanor, née Enchmarch. The family’s prosperity was adversely affected by a decline in the Exeter wool trade during the 1750s and in 1759 George Coade was declared bankrupt. The Coades moved to London soon after, living first at Charterhouse Square in the City and then at Charles Square, Hoxton. By 1766 Eleanor was in business on her own account as a linen draper. She never married but was referred to as Mrs Coade, the courteous form of address for a mature single woman in employment in the 18th century.
It is not clear how Mrs Coade became involved in the production of artificial stone, but she dated the foundation of her manufactory at Narrow Wall, by King’s Arms Stairs in Lambeth (later known as Belvedere Road and now a part of the area occupied by the South Bank Centre) to 1769. There was already an artificial stone business run by Daniel Pincot on the site by 1767. Coade appears to have taken over Pincot’s business and retained his services for some years, but the arrangement was unsatisfactory. In September 1771 she announced that Pincot was not a partner in the firm and 3 days later she declared that he was no longer employed by her (Daily Ad, 11 and 14 September 1771 cited by Valpy 1986, 215-6). John Bacon RA was appointed superintendent soon after. This proved to be an astute decision, for Bacon was a rising young sculptor and he provided the firm with some of its most popular designs over the next 3 decades.
The artificial stone produced by the factory was a ceramic material containing a large of proportion of ground pre-fired stoneware, or grog, with an additive of glass, which stabilised the body during firing. In its raw state the material lacked plasticity and could not easily be modelled, so it was rolled out in sheets and pressed into moulds. An enormous range of products, from simple architectural details like paterae and stringcourses to complex sculptural pieces such as the large statue of a river god at Ham House (94), were made by this method. Moulds could be reused and some of the most popular designs, such as the Borghese and Medici Vases (196, 200), were much repeated and remained in production over many years. Most stock items were reasonably priced: a lifesize statue of a charity school child could be bought for 16 guineas (87) and a bust of King Edward IV or Queen Elizabeth cost only three. Most works were cast in sections and then assembled before firing, which meant that they could easily be adapted to suit different purposes and tastes without the need for preparing a new model. A statue of Urania (92), for instance, could be transformed into a Flora (95) by the addition of some flowers.
Pincot, Richard Holt, Batty Langley and George Davy all preceded Coade as manufacturers of artificial stone and Bridges of Knightsbridge was a competitor during the 1770s, but her volume and scope of business greatly surpassed theirs. Her factory developed considerable expertise in controlling the firing process to produce a remarkably resilient material.The product marketed by her predecessors lacked the durability to withstand hard weather: the ornaments on Robert Adam’s Brentford Gateway at Syon House, for instance, which were executed in an early artificial stone (perhaps supplied by Davy or Bridges), crumbled due to frost damage. They were later replaced by ‘Coade stone’ panels, which are still in pristine condition (204).
Adam’s neoclassical architectural style was at the height of its popularity when Mrs Coade established her factory and Coade stone was the ideal material for the delicate, applied external ornaments he required, since the detail remained clear and sharp even in exposed situations. Coade also catered for the market requiring gothic architectural motifs and executed, notably, gate piers for Strawberry Hill (201), the screen at St George’s Chapel, Windsor (269) and 10 candelabra decorated with dragons and tracery for the conservatory at Carlton House (222). The popularity of Coade’s material was enhanced by the sustainedly high standard of design at the factory, where a number of prominent sculptors, particularly John De Vaere, JCF Rossi RA, Joseph Panzetta and Bacon provided the models.
Coade energetically promoted the factory’s products. In 1773 she advertised that the firm was ‘employed by many of the Nobility and first Architects in the Kingdom’. She published a catalogue listing 778 available items in 1784 and commissioned a series of engravings of products made by the company. In 1798 she built a row of houses in Pedlar’s Acre, at the south end of Westminster Bridge, one of which became ‘Coade’s Gallery’, the firm’s showroom. The façade was decorated with a relief, The attempts of Time to destroy Sculpture and Architecture, defeated by the vitrifying aid of fire (267), a design that was adapted from the firm’s tradecard designed by Bacon. A pamphlet describing the items on display and listing sites for which coade stone had already been supplied was published in 1799. The most impressive object was a colossal group of Polyphemus, standing on a cave, hurling rocks down at Acis and Galatea (116).
By 21 May 1789 John Sealy, a cousin of Eleanor Coade who had been employed at the factory for some years, had become a partner and the firm’s name changed to Coade and Sealy. A son or nephew of John Sealy, Thomas Sealy, was also employed at the factory until he died prematurely after crashing drunkenly into a post when passing through Pedlar’s Acre one night in January 1804. The factory reached the height of its success in the early-19th century when it received a number of prestigious commissions for public statues, including several commemorating the jubilee of George III in 1810 (128-30). The previous year a memorial column crowned with a statue of Admiral Nelson, was sent out to Montreal (127). The most ambitious commission was a spectacular tympanum relief celebrating Nelson for the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, which was designed by the President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West and modelled by Joseph Panzetta (290). The firm’s ability to cast a ceramic relief over forty feet long and reaching ten feet in height demonstrates the factory’s remarkable technical capabilities.
John Sealy died on 22 October 1813 and was buried in Lambeth churchyard, where a large coade stone monument marks the family vault (35). Mrs Coade then appointed as her manager a distant relation from Cornwall, William Croggon. He remained in the post until her death on 18 November 1821 and purchased the firm soon after. The terms of the transfer were disputed in the Chancery Court and Croggon’s order, day and letter books for the period 1813-1821 were presented as evidence. These records are now in the PRO (C111/106) and they indicate a diminution in demand for the firm’s architectural elements. Garden ornaments, vases and statues remained popular, but sales of relief plaques, medallions and friezes suffered as an austere, Greek-inspired classicism became the dominant architectural style. It was perhaps in response to these problems that the Coade factory turned to the production of scagliola, an imitation marble used for interior ornaments. The first order for scagliola came in 1817 and records show that production increased rapidly over the next few years. Croggon sought to expand the business by opening a showroom in Euston Road, close to the newly fashionable residential area of Regent’s Park. It was managed by his eldest son, William Richard Croggon.
The firm’s most prestigious later work was at Buckingham Palace, which was rebuilt from 1825 by John Nash. In addition to much ornamental work in scagliola and artificial stone (335), the factory supplied nine statues modelled by Edward Hodges Baily RA to designs by John Flaxman RA (331) and a further six modelled by JCF Rossi (332). These were all moved and some were lost during later alterations. William Croggon received payments of more than £10,000 for his work at the palace between 1825 and 1828.
Despite the size of the Buckingham Palace contract, Croggon was declared bankrupt in 1833. The reasons for his failure are not known, but he undertook much work for the Duke of York, for which he is unlikely to have been fully paid since the Duke died in 1827, owing large sums to tradesmen. The expense of setting up the Euston Road showroom may been another contributory factor. On 28 February 1834 Croggon wrote to Sir John Soane, stating that ‘having formed a partnership with a gentleman who has purchased all the stock, plant, machinery and effects, the business in all its branches is resumed under the firm of William Croggon and Company ... at Lambeth’ (Croggon/Soane). A further sale of surplus stock took place on 30 July 1834. Croggon died soon after, in July 1835. His son, Thomas John Croggon, took over the lease on the factory but concentrated on business activities outside the production of artificial stone and he finally left Lambeth in 1837, when the factory was let to Thomas Routledge and John Danforth Greenwood. They ran a terracotta and scagliola works for a number of years and appear to have produced small numbers of coade stone ornaments until as late as 1840. A colossal lion made for the Lion Brewery on Belvedere Road in 1837 (157) is stamped ‘COADES’ on its paw, but a bottle containing the trade card of Routledge & Greenwood was found in a cavity in its back during conservation work, and the charity boy at Vintners’ Hall is marked ‘COADE’S 1840’ (87). The factory’s moulds were finally sold by Rushworth and Jarvis in 1843. Some may have been purchased by M H Blanchard who manufactured a similar product for a period.
The firm’s achievements were underestimated for many years, partly because coade stone imitates the natural substance and so has often failed to be properly identified. The excavation of the factory’s site prior to construction of the Royal Festival Hall generated interest in the manufactury, and this was reinforced by the discovery of the Coade records in the Public Record Office during the 1960s. Recent studies, principally by Kelly, have revealed the scope and volume of the factory’s output.
EH
Literary References: Coade 1784, passim; Coade 1799, passim; Coade c1808, passim; The Times, 9 Oct 1833, 2; 23 Oct 1833, 6; 30 Nov 1833, 3; Builder, 25 July 1868, 546; S of L, XXIII, 1951, 58-61; Hamilton 1954, 295-301; Kessels 1955, 141-6; Gunnis 1968, 105-9, 116-7,304, 346; Ruch 1968, 34-56; Colvin VI, 1973-76, 270-1, 283, 298-301; Kelly 1978, 14-25; Valpy 1986, 215-223; Valpy 1990, 112-3; Kelly 1990, passim (with a gazetteer of works including minor architectural ornaments); Penny 1990, 879-880; Yorke 1993, 54-55; Grove 7, 1996, 480 (Kelly); ODNB (Kelly); Stanford 2023, 433-50.
Archival References: Voucher, dated 21 May 1789, for £83 18s 7d from William Constable to Mrs Coade and John Sealy, Artificial Stone Manufacturers, ERAO, Chichester Constable Papers DDCC/2/59
Additional MS Sources: Coade Papers
Collections of Designs: volumes of etchings BL 1802.b.24; NAL 37.E.218; GL A 3.5 no. 1; GL SL 68:5; Soane PC 115/14/2; RA
Will: PRO PROB 11/1651 (Eleanor Coade)
Auction References: Coade Factory 1779, 1834, 1843
Views of the Factory: interior of Coade kiln, engraving (Euro Mag, 1787, f 112); watercolour, c1800, GL Print Room q 9516811; George Shepherd, watercolour, c1800, GL Print Room q 9516828; Charles Tomkins, watercolour, 1801, GL Print Room q 9516834; Samuel Rawle, The entrance to Coade’s Gallery, engraving, 1802, GL Print Room q 9516840; JT Smith, pen and watercolour, for Pennant's London, in Owen 1994, 35 (repr)