The river is navigable only as far as Burton, for above that town it is interrupted by weirs and by shallows; but canals follow the valley, and in the year 1849 the railroad uniting Rugby with Stafford passed along it for a few miles, and directed through a district, hitherto secluded, the traffic between London and Holyhead or the great towns of western Lancashire. This railway quitted the Trent near its junction with the Sow, but a few years later the towns higher up the river, forming the important district of the Staffordshire Potteries, were reached by a line which branches off from the main system of the London and North-Western Company at Colwich.
THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.
The birthplace of Trent, like that of many persons afterwards famous, is inconspicuous. The river, according to Erdeswick, “hath its first spring in the moorlands between Bidulph and Norton, and divideth the shire almost into two equal parts, north and south.” There is little to note in its earlier course. One or two of the adjacent villages possess some link with our older history, notably “Stanleghe,” of which the author just quoted says, “of this small village do all the great houses of Stanley take their name.” But before long a district is entered, unpleasing indeed to the artist, but welcome to the man of commerce—a land of chimneys and smoke, of kilns and furnaces, not only for earth but also for metal. This is the district popularly called the Potteries, a group of towns often so nearly confluent as to defy distinction by all but residents. Tunstall and Burslem, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hanley and Stoke-upon-Trent: these, with such suburbs as Etruria, occupy a strip of country some ten miles long, drained by the youthful Trent and its tributaries, a composite or confluent hive of human bees. We will venture but on one positive statement, that Stoke-upon-Trent is the last of these towns, and below it the river emerges into more attractive scenery. In this district the smelting furnaces and ironworks are industries comparatively modern, but for centuries it has been noted for its earthenware. Burslem, one of the towns more distant from the Trent, appears to be the oldest, for under the name of Bulwardsleme it is mentioned in Domesday Book, and its “butter-pots” were noted in the days of the Stuarts. When Dr. Plot wrote his History of Staffordshire—that is, during the short reign of James II.—it was the chief place for the potter’s industry, and he tells us that “for making several sorts of pots they have as many different sorts of clay, which they dig round about the town, all within half a mile’s distance, the best being found near the coal.” This earthenware was all coloured, for the white clay from Cornwall had not yet been imported into the district. The most marked advance was due to one man—Josiah Wedgwood, who was born to the trade in 1730. The effect of an illness in youth led him to turn his thoughts to the more delicate work, and he soon exhibited great skill in manufacturing ornamental pottery. When nearly thirty years old he established himself in business at Burslem, and produced such results as the white-stone ware, green glazed earthenware, cream-coloured Queen’s ware, and the unglazed black porcelain. The works, however, at Burslem soon proved too small for his needs, and in 1766 he purchased an estate, built a large establishment on the bank of the Grand Trunk Canal, between Hanley and Newcastle, calling it Etruria, in remembrance of the so-called “Etruscan vases,” which were among his favourite models. Aided in business by his partner, Bentley, in art by the talent of Flaxman, Wedgwood prospered, and Etruria under his management surpassed the fame of Worcester, and rivalled that of Sèvres or Dresden. Wedgwood, in fact, by the graceful form and harmonious decoration of his wares, did not a little to educate the national taste and raise it from the easy contentment with opulent ugliness which is the general characteristic of the “Hanoverian period” of British Art. Since his days the village has become a town; the ironworks of Shelton have helped in blackening the precincts of Etruria Hall, which Wedgwood built, and in the cellars of which he made his experiments; Spode and Minton and Copeland have added to the fame of the Potteries; villages and towns have grown beyond recognition, and houses have hid what once were fields; but though these and other makers have produced, or still produce, many admirable and characteristic works, “old Wedgwood ware” maintains a unique position among the masterpieces of ceramic art.
ETRURIA. / JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
We must not linger over the Grand Trunk Canal, nor the fame of Brindley, the engineer, a native of this part of Staffordshire, nor shall we be much tempted to tarry in Stoke-upon-Trent—at any rate, for æsthetic reasons—unless we confine ourselves to the interior of its show rooms, though there is many a worse place to live in. It is mightily changed since the days when Erdeswick wrote of it, “Of Stoke I can report no more but that the parson of the parish is the best man in the town, being lord thereof, and it being one of the best parsonages in the county.” The parson now is a bishop and a baronet, but the town is yet more important.
It contains many buildings which larger towns could not despise: a handsome modern church, a fine town-hall, and a school of science and art, which is a memorial to the late Mr. Minton. Statues, or monuments of some kind, to several members of the great potter families—Wedgwood, Spode, Minton, and others—will be found here, and the town itself is regarded as the centre and show place of the district.
Below Stoke, and almost within sight of its chimneys by the side of Trent, stands one of the “stately homes” of England—Trentham Hall, a seat of the Duke of Sutherland. The mansion lies low on the flat bed of the valley; the park mounts the slopes on the right hand, thus affording great variety of scenery, from richly-wooded meadows to rather open moorland. There is nothing to suggest a settlement of great antiquity, yet a monastery was founded here in the days of Alfred. Enlarged by Ranulf Earl of Chester, it passed, after the Dissolution, into the hands of the Levesons, ancestors of the present duke. One of them built on its site a fine Jacobean house, of which Plot gives a plate together with the following quaint note: “The stone-rail upon the wall built about the green-court before Trentham House is a pretty piece of work, it being supported with Roman capital letters instead of ballisters, containing an inscription not only setting forth the name of the ancient Proprietor and builder of this Seat, but the time when it was done, the Numeral Letters put together making up the year of our Lord, when it was finish’t, viz., 1633.”
