Eleanor Coade

Who was Eleanor Coade?

Eleanor Coade was a British businesswoman known for manufacturing Neoclassical statues, architectural decorations and garden ornaments made of Lithodipyra for over 50 years from 1769 until her death. She should not be confused with her mother, also named Eleanor.

Lithodipyra was a high quality, durable moulded weather-resistant, ceramic stoneware, whereby statues and decorative features still look new today. She did not invent 'artificial stone', various inferior quality precursors having been both patented and manufactured over the previous forty years, but she was probably responsible for perfecting both the clay recipe and the firing process. High quality manufacturing and artistic taste combined with her entrepreneurial, business and marketing skills to create the overwhelmingly successful stone products of her age. She produced stoneware for St George's Chapel, Windsor; The Royal Pavilion, Brighton; Carlton House, London and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, whilst shortly after her death a large quantity was used in the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

Born in Exeter to two families of woolen merchants and weavers, she ran her business, Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory; Coade and Sealy and latterly Coade, for fifty years in Lambeth, London. A devout Baptist, she died unmarried in Camberwell.