“At Yearsley there are pancheons made
By Willie Wedgwood, that young blade.”
For this interesting fragment of a Yorkshire ballad I am indebted
MM
to my late friend the Rev. Robert Pulleine, Rector of Kirkby Wiske.
“Pancheons” are thick coarse earthenware pans, made of various sizes, and used for setting away milk in, and for washing purposes. They are made in several localities, and besides being sold by earthenware dealers, are hawked about the country by men who make their living in no other way.
Several fragments of brown pottery have at one time or other been dug up at Yearsley, and, among the rest, a brown earthenware oven, green glaze, semicircular, open at top, with a hollowed ledge round the inner side about half way, and a flat bottom, having two handles at the sides, and between them a crinkled ornament, bearing some letters and the date 1712.
Wortley.
The works at Wortley, near Leeds, were established in 1795 by Mr. John Cliff, father of the present Mr. Joseph Cliff, the head of the now firm of “Joseph Cliff and Son,” for the manufacture of fire-bricks, for which the clay of the locality was considered highly valuable. In 1820 the manufacture of clay retorts was commenced and continued very largely until 1830, when it gradually died out, but was revived about 1850 and has continued to the present day one of the most successful branches of the trade—the retorts being considered to be both better and cheaper than those in iron. About 1847 the manufacture of drain-pipes was added, and these were, and still are, made at the rate of several miles per week; blast-furnace lumps being also largely made, and, owing to their excellent quality, extensively used. In 1866, terra-cotta was added to the other productions of this firm and is still carried on. About the same time white and coloured glazed bricks were made, and now form one of the staple trades of the works, as do plumbago crucibles, the manufacture of which was introduced in 1869.
The goods principally produced by Mr. Cliff are, in terra-cotta, vases, tazzas, and pedestals; figures and brackets; capitals, trusses, keystones, terminals, and other architectural enrichments; flower-boxes, baskets, and suspenders; chimney-shafts, and many other articles, some of which are characterized by extreme chasteness of design and by excellence of finish. In stoneware, tubes, pipes, and sanitary goods of every description; troughs, mangers, and sinks; enamelled retorts for gas, and chemical goods, &c. Fire and other bricks and tiles are also very extensively made, as are garden edgings, fire-backs, for which a patent has been obtained by the firm. Messrs. Cliff and Son were awarded a medal in 1862, and at the Paris Exhibition of 1867.