A hundred years ago Simeon Shaw wrote a book of this nature. It had its merits, but since then research among ancient documents, systematic collection and excavation, the publications of the William Salt Archæological Society, and, above all, the modern work of such men as William Burton and Professor Church, have made it possible to restate far more exactly what happened, and when, to potting in North Staffordshire. Mr Burton’s “History and Description of English Earthenware” and his various works on porcelain have been drawn upon very largely in the following pages.
Both to him and to Professor Church, M. Solon and to many others, who have given me so much personal assistance in this work, I desire to express my gratitude. I can only regret that my own contribution to original research on the subject has been confined to the Tunstall Court Rolls, kindly lent me by Mr Sneyd, and to the MSS of my great-great-grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, now in the museum of the Wedgwood firm at Etruria. Lastly I would express my indebtedness to my brother Frank Wedgwood, who has read through the proofs and made many corrections, such as would occur to one whose whole life has been devoted to the practice of the art of potting.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Slip decorated Staffordshire ware. c. 1660 | Page [14] |
| Earliest known piece of Staffordshire salt glaze ware, 1701 | [32] |
| Red china teapot, probably by Elers. c. 1760 | [36] |
| Sample of later date, with moulded spout | [36] |
| Samples of solid agate ware, made by Wedgwood or Weildon. c. 1760 | [36] |
| Salt glaze teapot, drab body, supposed to be by Thomas Wedgwood, died 1737 | [54] |
| Burslem in 1750 (map) | [60] |
| Scratched blue salt glaze cup, dated 1750 | [68] |
| Enamelled salt glaze jug, probably by Baddeley of Shelton, dated 1760 | [70] |
| Staffordshire figures decorated with Weildon glaze, probably by Wedgwood, c. 1760 | [79] |
| Etruria Works | [83] |
| J. Wedgwood | [87] |
| William Turner, Master Potter | [100] |
| Hackwood, the Modeller | [103] |
| Hanley in 1800 (map) | [107] |
| Vase by John Turner of Lane End, died 1786 | [109] |
| Thomas Minton | [111] |
| William Adams | [122] |
| John Wood, of Brownhills | [125] |
| Burslem in 1800 (map) | [131] |
| Josiah Spode | [134] |
| Herbert Minton | [137] |
| Job Ridgway | [141] |
| Josiah Wedgwood II | [149] |
| William Adams | [162] |
| Ald. W. T. Copeland, M.P. | [178] |
CHAPTER I.
THE CREATION OF THE POTTERIES.
In no country is there a district so utterly associated with one trade as is the North Staffordshire Potteries. One even speaks of the Potteries in the singular as of a pure place-name. If you spoke in Timbuctoo or California of the Potteries, none could doubt that you were thinking of North Staffordshire.
The reason is not that the district is or ever was given over entirely to pot-banks. Potting was incidental, a pastime in the middle of agriculture; as potting grew, so coal and iron mining grew too. The district is less confined to potting than Walsall to saddlery or Sheffield to knives. Even a thirteenth century reference to Walsall will expose harness; it is difficult to trace pots in the Potteries before 1650; you find only bloom-smithies and sea-coal mines. Potting is neither so ancient here, nor so exclusive as to have made the name. The real reason of the place-name, the Potteries, is that no man who valued time could say Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke and Longton, whenever he wanted to refer to one place—the place where men made pots—and few people outside the five towns ever wanted to speak of them separately, or could even distinguish one from others.