STAFFORDSHIRE WARE.
Plate XIX.
Of all the tradesmen who supply the domestic table, there are none more frequently called upon than the earthen-ware man. In great families, where constant cooking is going on, the dust-bin seldom passes a day without receiving the accidents to which a scullery is liable, nor is there, upon an average, a private family in England that passes a week without some misfortune to their crockery. Many householders set down at least ten pounds a year for culinary restorations; so that the itinerant Staffordshire Ware vendor, exhibited in the following plate, is sure to sell something in every street he enters, particularly since that ware has been brought by water to Paddington, whence he and many others, who go all over the town to dispose of their stock in baskets, are regularly supplied; and in consequence of the safety and cheapness of the passage, they are enabled to dispose of their goods at so moderate a rate that they can undersell the regular shopkeeper.
Staffordshire is the principal place in England for the produce of earthen ware; the manufactories cover miles of land, and the minds of the people appear to be solely absorbed in their business. Coals cost them little but the labour of fetching; they work from twelve to fourteen hours a day, and those who choose to perform what they call over-time, are employed sixteen hours in each day. The men have for twelve hours in each day, being common time, seven shillings per week; the women four shillings, and the children, who turn the lathes, two shillings and sixpence. These people are so constantly at work and perpetually calling out “turn,” when they wish it to go faster, to the boy who gives motion to the lathe, that it is said that those who fall into intoxication are sure, however drunk they may be, to call to the boy to turn, whether at work or not. There are men who make plates, others who make basins, &c.; and those who make jugs, tea and milkpots, have what they call handle-men, persons whose sole business it is to prepare the handles and stick them on. Their divisions of land, similar to banks or hedges, as well as their roads, for miles, are wholly constructed of their broken earthen-ware.
They have their regular packers, who pique themselves on getting in a dozen of plates more than usual in an immense basket.
When they meet with a clay that differs in colour from that they have been using, they will apply themselves most readily to make up a batch of plates, basins, or tea-cups, well knowing the public are pleased with a new colour; and it is a curious fact that there are hundreds of varieties of tints produced from the different pits used by these Staffordshire manufactories. There are men whose business it is to glaze the articles, and others who pencil and put on the brown or white enamel with which the common yellow jug is streaked or ornamented. In the brown or yellow baking dishes used by the common people, the dabs of colour of brown and yellow are laid on by children, with sticks, in the quickest way imaginable. The profits of earthen-ware in general are very great, as indeed they ought to be, considering the brittleness of the article, and the number of accidents they are continually meeting with, as is demonstrated by their hedge-rows and roads.
An article that is sold for fourpence in London, costs but one penny at the manufactory.
