Eleanor Coade

Eleanor Coade (1733-1821) was a member of James Upton’s Baptist congregation in Blackfriars, south London. Coade established a firm in Lambeth, just across the Thames from Westminster Abbey, around 1769 called ‘Coade’s Lithodipyra, Terracotta, or Artificial Stone Manufactory’, which became known for the patent of the ceramic imitation of stone named after her, some of which was used in the construction of Buckingham Palace, St George’s Windsor, and the Royal Naval College, Woolwich, as well as the Paragon in Walworth and in Blackheath built by Michael Searles between 1790 and 1810. She continued with the firm until her death in 1821 (after 1789 she had various managers of her business). Coadestone was popular for outdoor sculptures because of its resistance to weathering. Coade made a bust for Elizabeth Coltman in 1792 that was given to the Broughton poet Mary Steele c. 1794-95 and was later in the possession of Sarah Holland Brackenbury (1771–1847) and finally Mary Ellen Franklin Rudd (1854–1943), a descendant of Coltman’s great-niece, Elizabeth Cooper Franklin (1817–74). The bust now resides in the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery (item description, L.H516.1973.0.0). For more on Coade and pottery, see J. H. Y. Briggs, ‘Nonconformity’, 52–53.