CHAPTER XI.
STOKE-UPON-TRENT—STAFFORDSHIRE—MANCHESTER—LEEDS—CARLISLE.
We arrived at Stoke-upon-Trent at noon. Our valises deposited at the coat-room of the station, we sallied out for a restaurant dinner and a visit to the pottery of the Mintons. There are many places of crockery manufacture here, all having a dingy look; most of them are of brick or stone, and two or three stories high. The buildings are not large, but each establishment has several, with chimneys forty to sixty feet high, tapering largely as they rise. The greatest facilities are furnished for visiting the works. We greatly enjoyed our visit, and theoretically know just how it is done; yet we couldn't excel practically the youngest apprentice. It is hardly in order to give lessons, but some information may be worth a passing word.
The clay is uncommon and found in but few places. It has also to be peculiarly prepared. When ready to be moulded it looks very much like putty or wheaten dough. The dish is made in the usual manner, on the potter's wheel, or on a mould. It is partially dried and then baked in a great oven, from which it comes out white as chalk. If it is to be white and undecorated, it is then dipped into a tank of liquid sizing, in appearance like dirty milk. It drips off, and is then put again into an oven and subjected to intense heat. The sizing melts or vitrifies, and turns into glazing. The oven cools off slowly, and the ware is taken out glossy and ready for sale.
If the dish is to be ornamented, the figures are put on with a stencil-plate, or printed on the white ware after the first baking and before the glazing. Of course any desired color can be rubbed over the stencil. If the ware is to be printed, this is done with a soft roller, which takes its tint and impression from a stamp. This roller is passed over the stamp as a similar article is rolled over printer's type; only the figure is imprinted on the pottery, not with the stamp or type itself, but with the roller, from whose soft surface the figure is readily absorbed by the moist clay. After this the ware is dipped into sizing and finished as before described. If the ware is to be rudely ornamented with flowers, these are often painted on it by hand, after the first baking, women and girls being employed for the purpose. Of course glazing and burning must always follow the decoration. If colored stripes are desired, these also are put on by hand. If ware is to be elegantly adorned, with pictures of flowers, animals, or landscapes,—in a word, Sèvres or Worcester ware,—this also is done by the patient hand-labor at the benches. A hundred women are sometimes at work in a single room, as if they were making water-color drawings. If gold lines are to be put on, this is done with gold paint. It is black when it comes from the furnace, but is then rubbed down with cornelian burnishers and the gold color restored. China is no more nor less than thin ware made of a peculiar clay. Of the secrets of coloring we know nothing. Hundreds of years have been employed in experimenting on the minor details; and with all their generous entertainment of strangers, and perhaps of angels unawares,—not being sure the visitor is not a fallen one, and so inclined to abuse the information,—the artisans are not free to impart information which seems small, but is really of the utmost importance.
The town is situated on the River Trent, as its name implies, and the entire parish, including Stanley and many other suburbs, has a population of 89,262. It has numerous wharves and warehouses, and is intersected by the great Trent canal and the Staffordshire railway. It has the honor of being the birthplace of Rev. John Lightfoot, the celebrated ecclesiastical writer and Hebrew scholar. He was born here March 29, 1602, and died at Ely, where he was prebend at the cathedral, Dec. 6, 1675. The town receives its notoriety solely from its potteries.
Our second visit was to the warerooms of Minturn & Hollins, who are celebrated, as are the original Minturns, for the elegance of their work, which is well known in America as well as Europe. Their display was wonderful for fineness of execution and exquisite coloring.
Our notebook, as well as our vivid recollection, defines it as "an inexpressibly smoky place, with hundred of chimneys, in groups of from ten to twenty, belching forth thick and black smoke."
At 4 p. m. we took a train for another great workshop, and on our way must needs go through, not Samaria, but Staffordshire, which is one of the best examples of a smoke district; and—like Niagara in this—that one is enough for a world.