Martin Barr

Martin Barr (1756-1813) was a porcelain manufacturer; his business partner was Joseph Flight (1762-1838), who along with his brother, John (1766-91), had amassed considerable wealth after the purchase of the Worcester China Factory in 1783 by their father, Thomas Flight (1726-1800), selling primarily French porcelain that John Flight had purchased for purposes of imitation during his frequent visits to France. The senior Flight had been the London agent for the factory since 1768. After John Flight’s untimely death in 1791, Tom Flight found a new partner in Martin Barr, a devout Calvinist and member of the Independent congregation at Angel Street in Worcester. During his journey through the Midlands in 1796, Coleridge met two other influential Calvinists, one who would easily have been known to Cottle and his Baptist friends in Bristol. While visiting Worcester, Coleridge wrote to Wade on 10 January 1796, "Tomorrow I shall go through the Manufactory with Mr Barr – and on Tuesday morning set off for Birmingham – Worcester is a beautiful Town … I did not sleep at Mr Barr’s – Mr Flight the partner having arrived from London that very evening." See J. Sandon, The Dictionary of Worcester Porcelain, Volume 1: 1751-1851 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collector's Club, 1996), 162-66; also E. L. Griggs, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956-71),  1.175-76.