Richard Champion was an English merchant and porcelain manufacturer, who emigrated to the United States in 1784.
Richard Champion illustrated in Hugh Owen's 200 years of Ceramic Art in Bristol (1873)
Bristol porcelain plaque with portrait bust of Benjamin Franklin, from Champion's factory, 1770s
Bristol porcelain cup and saucer, 1774, from the Champion period. The Latin inscription reads: "R. and J. Champion gave this as a token of friendship to J. Burke the best of British wives, on the third day of November, 1774". This was Jane, Mrs Edmund Burke; Champion was a friend, who helped Burke's election that year as a Bristol MP.
Plymouth porcelain was the first English hard paste porcelain, made in the county of Devon from 1768 to 1770. After two years in Plymouth the factory moved to Bristol in 1770, where it operated until
Richard Champion of Bristol
…all of his life, though his Quaker beliefs were sometimes tested. Champion met William Cookworthy around 1764; and when Cookworthy, the founder of the Plymouth Porcelain Manufactory, moved this business in 1770, it was to Champion he turned as manager, with Champion taking shares. The wares were, uniquely in England…
"Europe", about 1770, from a set. Height 32.7 cm, V&A Museum.
Covered butter pot, c. 1770, William Cookworthy & Co., Bristol (or possibly Plymouth), England, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels