Creamware master potter Thomas Whieldon with coloured stains under the glaze. It served as an inexpensive substitute for the soft-paste porcelains being developed by contemporary English manufactories, initially in competition with Chinese export porcelains. It was often made in the same fashionable and refined styles as porcelain. The most notable producer of creamware was Josiah Wedgwood, who perfected the ware, beginning during his partnership with Thomas Whieldon. Around 1779, he was able to lighten the cream colour to a bluish white by using cobalt in the lead overglaze. Wedgwood sold this more desirable product under the name "pearl ware". Wedgwood supplied
Creamware to outside specialist enamellers or transfer-printers for decoration – decoration in-house was only gradually adopted. For this reason, several manufacturers usually shared the same decorator or printer and tended to use the same or very similar patterns. Collectors, dealers and curators alike were frustrated in their efforts to ascribe pots to individual factories: it is frequently impossible to do so. Archaeological excavations of pottery sites in Staffordshire and elsewhere have helped provide some better-established typology to enable progress in attribution. Italian versions of creamware were known as terraglia, or "creta all'uso inglese" ("earthenware in the English manner"). They were produced