“POT-WORKS IN BURSLEM ABOUT THE YEAR 1710 TO 1715.”
| Potters’ Names | Kinds of Ware | Supposed amount | Residence | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | |||
| Thos. Wedgwood | Black & Motled | 4 | 0 | 0 | Churchyard. |
| John Cartlich | Moulded | 3 | 0 | 0 | Flash. |
| (“Small”) Robt. Daniel | Black & Motled | 2 | 0 | 0 | Holehouse. |
| (“Small”) Thos. Malkin | Black & Motled | 3 | 0 | 0 | Hamel. |
| Richd. Malkin | Black & Motled | 2 | 10 | 0 | Knole. |
| Dr Thos. Wedgwood | Brown Stone | 6 | 0 | 0 | Ruffleys. |
| Wm. Simpson | ? | 3 | 0 | 0 | Stocks. |
| Isa Wood | ? | 4 | 0 | 0 | Back of the “George.” |
| Thos. Taylor | Moulded | 3 | 0 | 0 | Now Mrs Wedgwoods. |
| Wm. Harrison | Motled | 3 | 0 | 0 | Bournes Bank. |
| Isaac Wood | Cloudy | 3 | 0 | 0 | Top of Robins Croft. |
| John Adams[38] | Black & Motled | 2 | 10 | 0 | Brick House. |
| Marsh’s | Not worked | — | Top of Daniels Croft. | ||
| Moses Marsh | Stone Ware | 6 | 0 | 0 | Middle of the Town. |
| Robt. Adams | Motled & Black | 2 | 10 | 0 | Next on the east side. |
| Aaron Shaw | Stone & dippt white | 6 | 0 | 0 | Next on the east side. |
| (“Conick”) Saml. Cartlich | Motled | 3 | 0 | 0 | Next to the South. |
| Aaron Wedgwood | Motled & Black | 4 | 0 | 0 | Next to the “Red Lyon.” |
| Thomas Taylor | Stone ware and Freckled | ? | Next to the North. | ||
| Moses Shaw | Stone ware and Freckled | 6 | 0 | 0 | Middle of the Town. |
| Thos. Wedgwood | Moulded | 2 | 10 | 0 | Middle of the Town, now Grahams. |
| Isaac Ball | ? | 4 | 0 | 0 | S.W. end of the Town. |
| Saml. Edge | Stone Ware | 6 | 0 | 0 | Next to the West. |
| Thos. Lockett | Motled | 3 | 0 | 0 | Late Cartlichs. |
| Tunstals | Not worked | 3 | 0 | 0 | Opposite. |
| (“Double Rabbit”) John Simpson | ? | 3 | 0 | 0 | West end of the Town. |
| Rd. Simpson | Red Dishes, &c. | 3 | 0 | 0 | The Pump, West End. |
| Thos. Cartwright | Butter Pots | 2 | 0 | 0 | West end of the Town. |
| Thos. Mitchel | Not worked | ? | Rotten Row (now High Street). | ||
| Moses Steel | Cloudy | 3 | 0 | 0 | Rotten Row (now High Street). |
| John Simpson, Chell | Motled & Black | 4 | 0 | 0 | Rotten Row (now High Street). |
| J. Simpson, Castle | Red dishes & pans | 3 | 10 | 0 | Rotten Row (now High Street). |
| Isaac Malkin | Motled & Black | 3 | 0 | 0 | Green Head. |
| Rd. Wedgwood | Stone ware | 6 | 0 | 0 | Middle of the Town. |
| John Wedgwood | Not worked | ? | Upper House. | ||
| Jno. or Joseph Warburton | ? | 6 | 0 | 0 | Hot lane or Cobridge. |
| Hugh Mare | Motled | 3 | 0 | 0 | Hot lane or Cobridge. |
| Robt. Bucknal | Motled | 4 | 0 | 0 | Hot lane or Cobridge. |
| Ra. Daniel | ? | 3 | 0 | 0 | Hot lane or Cobridge. |
| Bagnal | Butter Pots | 2 | 0 | 0 | Grange (i.e. Rushton Grange). |
| Jno. Stevenson | Cloweded (sic.) | 3 | 0 | 0 | Sneyd Green. |
| ? | Clouded | 3 | 0 | 0 | Sneyd Green. |
| H. Beech | Butter Pots | 2 | 0 | 0 | Holdin. |
| £139 | 10 | 0 | at 46 weeks to the year, is £6,417. | ||
“(£6417) annual produce of the pottery in the beginning of the eighteenth century in Burslem parish. Burslem was at this time so much the principle part of the pottery that there were very few pot works anywhere else.
“Potters at Hanley, the beginning of the 18th centy.
| Joseph Glass | Clowdy a sort of dishes painted with difft’ color’d slips, and sold at 3s. and 3s. 6d. a doz. |
| Wm. Simpson | Clowdy and Motled. |
| Hugh Mare [Mayer] | Black and Motled. |
| John Mare | ” ” |
| Rd. Marsh | Motled and Black. Lamprey Pots and Venison Pots. |
| John Ellis | Butter Pots &c. |
| Moses Sandford | Milk Pans and Small Ware. |
“Only one horse and one mule kept at Hanley. No carts scarcely in the country. Coals carried upon men’s backs. Hanley Green like Wolstanton marsh. Only two houses (meaning potteries) at Stoke; Wards, and Poulsonson’s.”[39]
If this list is to be regarded as satisfactory evidence, and it must be remembered that it only professes to be a report of the fifty-year-old recollections of old men, then it would appear that Burslem was still the narrow home of the Potteries. It shows us the master potter of that day, employing 11 hands at wages not exceeding 6s. a week, working himself, and out of his single oven-full a week making a profit of 10s. As represented it is still a peasant industry. But the scope and range of the pottery produced has increased since Dr Plot described “the greatest pottery they have in this County.” The butter-pots; the cloudy, mottled, speckled and black; probably the red dishes and pans; these all existed in Plot’s time; but what is the “moulded” ware made by Cartlich and Thomas Taylor and by Dr Thomas Wedgwood, jun., in the middle of Burslem? The stone ware too is new since Plot’s time. The five biggest factories all make this stoneware, Dr Thomas Wedgwood, sen., Moses Marsh, Aaron Shaw, Moses Shaw, Sam. Edge and Richard Wedgwood, the brother of Dr Thomas.
Undoubtedly this was the new salt-glazed stoneware. The brown stoneware ascribed in the list to Dr Thomas Wedgwood coincides exactly with the drab salt-glazed teapot by him now in the South Kensington Museum. It is supposed to have been made by mixing the lightest burning local clay with the fine white sand from Baddeley Edge or Mow Cop.[40]
The list gives no potworks at all at the Longton end of the district, yet then or shortly afterwards Delft ware was probably made at the place called Lane Delf, now part of Fenton. Shaw says that in 1710 Thomas Heath of Lane Delf was making a strange kind of pottery, and he proceeds to describe a particular dish in such a way as to show that it was really Delft ware.[41] There is no trace of Delft ware having been made anywhere else in the Potteries, or indeed at any subsequent time at Lane Delf itself, so that we may fairly ascribe to this solitary experiment of Thomas Heath’s the name of the locality.[42]