What the total number of pottery establishments in the whole district may be, we have no certain means of determining; but perhaps the most correct estimate is likely to be that of the Government Commissioner lately alluded to; as the purport of his investigation was to visit all the works, with a view to a general estimate of the results. The list which he gives includes fifty-six distinct porcelain and pottery works in Stoke and the portion of the district southward of it, and sixty in the portion northward of Stoke.

We have now brought the reader all the way from Tunstall to Lane End, and have pointed out the chief external characteristics of this eight-mile street. But we have seen the semi-beehive semi-sugarloaf buildings only on the outside, not in the interior: we have spoken of the men, their caps, their houses, their amusements, without seeing them at work. A notice of the district without a peep into one of the banks, would be as barren as looking at the cover of a book without opening it. We must open the book; and in order to read the book aright, it will be well first to glance at the rise and progress of the manufacture in this district, so far as its more salient features are concerned.

RISE OF THE POTTERY MANUFACTURE. The progress of the art of pottery in this country has been marked by many singular features. Many discoveries and improvements have resulted (or have seemed to result) from mere accident; and many personal anecdotes are bound up with the history. Staffordshire has had its full share-and indeed a lion's share-in all the stages of progress.

That the Romans, and perhaps the Britons, practised this art in England in early times, there is abundant evidence. In taking down the nunnery chapel of Farewell, in Staffordshire, in 1747, there were found in the south wall, several feet asunder, and at a height of six feet from the ground, three ranges of vessels of very coarse pottery, covered with thin plaster. The mouths of these vessels were towards the inside of the edifice. They were of two sizes: the larger were 111 inches high, 4 inches diameter at the mouth, and 24 inches in circumference at the widest part; while the smaller were 6 inches high, 3 inches diameter at the mouth, and 16 inches in the largest circumference. What was the age of these vessels no evidence remains to show; but the readers of antiquarian works are familiar with numberless examples of urns, vases, and vessels of different kinds, being dug up among or near the foundations of ancient buildings: showing that the pottery art, whether introduced here by the Romans or pre-existing, must have been practised many ages ago. This, however, is not proving much; for the art is so easy and so natural, that it is likely to occur almost spontaneously in any country where clay is abundant.

It is known that, for many centuries, considerable quantities of common culinary ware were made in Staffordshire, of red, brown, and mottled pottery, easily

procured by a mixture of the clays found in the county. When the manufacture was confined to such productions, the prepared liquid clay, or slip, was evaporated to the proper degree of stiffness by exposure to the sun and air, instead of exposure to kiln-fires as at present. Such potteries were called Sun-kiln potteries; and they were usually built at a very open part of the road, where free access of sun and air could be obtained. The remains of many of these sun-kilns are yet to be seen from Tunstall in the north to Lane End in the south; and a few of them are even yet employed in making coarse red flower-pots and other articles. The distinguishing feature of these buildings was the kiln itself, which was a kind of shallow tank, sixteen or twenty feet square by half a yard in depth, in which the prepared clay was exposed to sun and air till the required degree of evaporation had supervened.

Dr. Plot visited the Potteries about 1680; and it is evident from his account that the native clays were the material almost wholly worked upon. "The greatest pottery they have in this county," says he, "is carried on at Burslem, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, where, for making their several sorts of pots, they have as many different sorts of clay, which they dig round about the town, all within half a mile distance: the best being found nearest the coal, and are distinguished by their colours and uses, as followeth :-bottle-clay, of a bright whitish-streaked yellow colour; hard fire-clay, of a duller whitish colour, and fuller interspersed with a dark yellow, which they use for their black wares, being mixed with the red blending clay, which is of a dirty red colour; white clay, so called, it seems, though of a blewish colour, and used for making yellowcoloured ware, because yellow is the lightest colour they make any ware of. All these they call throwing clays, because they are of a closer texture, and will work in the wheel; which none of the three other clays, called slips, will doe, being of looser and more friable natures."

Some writers have said that the employment of Burslem was in making butter-pots, a very coarse, cheap, and porous kind of ware; but the author of a History of the Staffordshire Potteries,' who seems from his style of description to have been himself a potter, is indignant at such a limitation of the art: he shows that, in the seventeenth century, numerous kinds of jars and bottles were made at that time; as well as a curious sort of vessel called a jowl, with a hole in the lower or narrow end for a spigot or tap. The butter-pot seems, however, to have been an article of more commercial notoriety, for Plot has the following paragraph relating to it :-"The butter they (the factors) buy by the pot, of a long cylindrical form, made at Burslem of a certain size, so as not to weigh above six pounds at most, and to contain at least fourteen pounds of butter, according to an Act of Parliament made about fourteen or sixteen years ago, for regulating the abuses in this trade, in the make of the pots, and false packing of the butter; which before was sometimes laid good for a little depth at the top,

and bad at the bottom; and sometimes set in rolls, only touching at the top, and standing hollow below at a great distance from the sides of the pot. To correct these little country Moorlandish cheats (than whom no people whatever are esteemed more subtile) the factors keep a surveyor all the summer here, who, if he have good ground to suspect any of the pots, tries them with an instrument of iron made like a cheese-taster, only much larger and longer, called an auger or butter-bore, with which he makes proof, thrusting it in obliquely to the bottom of the pot."

One of the early improvements was to give some sort of glaze or vitreous surface to the better kinds of ware; but it is not now known what were the earliest forms of this art at the Staffordshire Potteries. Another improvement or novelty consisted in combining layers of different coloured clays into the same mass before working, so as to give the ware a streaked or variegated appearance. About 1670 it became very customary to use pulverized lead-ore for glazing the surface of the ware; and to prevent the discoloration of this glaze while exposing it to the necessary heat of the glazing-kiln, the articles were placed in saggers, or large vessels of coarse clay, which were themselves placed in the kilns. These saggers have given rise to

a bit of learning among the potters; for we are told in the History' before referred to, that the name is derived "from the Hebrew sagar, to burn; and to this day applied as segar to a rolled leaf of tobacco, from burning while its fumes are inhaled." A very few years afterwards, the discovery of the efficiency of salt in glazing was made by one of the accidents which have played so busy a part in the history of the Potteries. "At Stanley Farm (a short mile from the small pottery of Mr. Palmer, at Bagnall, five miles east of Burslem), the servant of Mr. Joseph Yates was boiling, in an earthen vessel, a strong lixivium of common salt, to be used some way in curing pork; but during her temporary absence the liquor effervesced, and some ran over the sides of the vessel, quickly causing them to become red-hot; the muriatic acid decomposed the surface; and when cold, the sides were partially glazed. Mr. Palmer availed himself of the hint thus obtained, and commenced making a fresh sort-the common brown ware of our day; and was soon followed by the manufacturers in Holden Lane, Green Hills, and Brown Hills: the proximity of their situation to the salt-wyches affording great facility for procuring the quantity of salt required for their purposes."

wood. Almost all the potters of any note, before the middle of the last century, lived in and near Burslem; and among them were several members of the Wedgwood family, who seem to have been moderately wealthy manufacturers. We read of John and Aaron and two Thomases; but the Wedgwood, par excellence, was Josiah.

Josiah Wedgwood was born in 1780, at Burslem, where his father, Thomas Wedgwood, carried on the Churchyard Pottery, as it was called. Josiah received very little schooling. At the early age of eleven he worked with his father as a thrower; he and his brother Richard worked in the two corners of a small room at this employment. Richard subsequently enlisted as a soldier; but Josiah never left the associations with which he was early surrounded. Though he did not leave them, however, his career was to be marked by a wonderful extension of them. His first commercial proceedings were in partnership with a Mr. Harrison; but the partnership was soon dissolved, and he established a pottery at Burslem, near those of his relations. He made knife-hafts, green tiles, tortoiseshell and marble pottery, and other articles somewhat out of the common course. His works gradually increased in extent, and he introduced successive improvements in white-stone pottery, creamcoloured pottery, and other kinds.

The circumstances which brought Wedgwood into note arose out of a partnership which he formed with Mr. Bentley, and with whom he opened a warehouse in London. This Mr. Bentley was a man much above the common order: he had a cultivated mind, a refined taste, and a wide circle of acquaintance among artists and virtuosi. From these persons, or through their means, he obtained the loan of vases, busts, cameos, intaglios, medallions, seals, and other works of art; and these were sent down to Burslem, where the ingenuity of Wedgwood was exercised in producing imitations of them in pottery. Sir William Hamilton supplied specimens from Herculaneum; other specimens of ancient vases were furnished from other quarters; and prints and drawings were lent or purchased in furtherance of the object. Josiah Wedgwood surmounted, one by one, the numerous difficulties incident to such a novel and delicate kind of work; and the colour, elegance, firmness, and durability of his imitations of the antique became more and more widely known. The courts of Europe were desirous to obtain specimens of them; and agents were sent over from France, Russia, Germany, and Holland. Whenever there were distinguished visitors at Trentham, the seat of the Marquis of Stafford (in the neighbourhood), it was customary for them to ride over to see Mr. Wedgwood's works, at Burslem. In this it is now known that Mr. Wedgwood gained credit for even more than his due; for the ingenuity of many of his contemporaries was quite thrown into the shade by the lustre of his name.

Wedgwood made a few articles of cream-colour for Queen Charlotte, who afterwards ordered a complete

dinner-service of the same kind, with a few alterations in the mode of finishing. The service was highly approved: the pattern became the Queen's pattern, and the ware the Queen's ware; and under these titles the ware brought to Wedgwood such an amount of business as speedily made him a wealthy man his works of art brought him fame, but his works of everyday utility placed him in the position of an opulent manufacturer.

The next novelty was jasper-ware, which had great celebrity for many years. This is a beautiful and fine kind of pottery, which can be so coloured with metallic oxides as to impart a tint to any part of the surface, and leave the rest a pure and delicate white: it was much employed for cameos, and for profile likenesses of eminent persons. He also made busts of black Egyptian ware.

Mr. Wedgwood, in 1768, established another Pottery (having already three or four), a little to the west of Shelton, and near it he built a mansion for himself and a street of houses for his work-people. To this group (as we mentioned in a former page) he gave the name of Etruria, from the name of the ancient country which produced so many beautiful vases and urns in pottery. Etruria became the chief point of attraction in the Pottery district; for Wedgwood's name was by this name known throughout Europe. There was a largeness of view about Wedgwood, in most of his arrangements, which marked him as much as his inventive talent. In working out his plans, there was a liberality, a magnitude, which astonished many of his contemporaries.

The incident of the Barberini, or Portland Vase, was a striking example in point. This exquisite production of ancient art, shortly after being brought to England, was put up to auction. The Duchess of Portland was exceedingly anxious to become the possessor of it; and she outbid the competitors one after another. There was one bidder, however, who refused to yield: as often as she raised the proffered price he did so likewise. The biddings thus ran up to an unusually high sum; and the Duke of Portland, who was present, wished to ascertain why this pertinacity was exhibited. The competitor was Wedgwood, the potter, who desired to obtain possession of the vase, that he might make copies of it in pottery. The Duke on hearing this, proposed that Wedgwood should cease. his biddings, on condition that the vase should be lent to him for a sufficient time: this proposal was accepted; and the Duchess became the owner of the Barberini (thenceforward the Portland) Vase, at the unprecedented sum of eighteen hundred guineas. Wedgwood then brought all the resources of his art into work, to produce imitations, as exact as possible, of the vase. succeeded to a degree which astonished everybody: he obtained a subscription-list, for copies, at fifty guineas cach; but so elaborate was the work, that he is understood to have lost money by it as a commercial speculation. This, however, was one feature in Wedgwood's career: his beautiful works of art brought him dis

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tinction rather than wealth; but this distinction was a stepping-stone to the acquisition of fortune, in those branches of the manufacture where (the number of copies being reckoned by thousands rather than by units) commercial profits are more likely to accumulate. One of the most notable of all the improvements in Staffordshize pottery, the printing of a pattern in black, was introduced by Wedgwood, about 1767. He was not the inventor of the method, but he was the first to get it known in the district. The method was by printing on the glaze; but the subsequent and still more successful system of printing in blue colour before the glazing, appears to have been totally distinct from any of Wedgwood's productions.

There were some very judicious views propounded by Mr. Wedgwood in 1785, which, while intended for another object, illustrated the importance of the Pottery manufacture at that time. The Government in that year entered upon an inquiry, how far it would be desirable to abolish the system of commercial restrictions and disabilities then existing between Great Britain and Ireland, and to render the intercourse between the two countries free and unrestricted. In the course of some evidence given on this subject Mr. Wedgwood said: "Though the manufacturing part alone, in the Potteries, and their immediate vicinity, gives bread to fifteen or twenty thousand persons; yet this is but a small object, when compared with the many others which depend on it. 1st, The immense quantity of inland carriage it creates throughout the kingdom, both for its raw materials and finished goods. 2nd, The great number of people employed in the extensive collieries for its use. 3rd, The still greater number employed in raising and preparing its raw materials in several distant parts of England, from near the Land's End, in Cornwall, one way along different parts of the coast, to Falmouth, Teignmouth, Exeter, Poole, Gravesend, and the Norfolk coast; the other way to Bideford, Wales, and the Irish coast. 4th, The coasting-vessels, which, after having been employed at the proper season in the Newfoundland fisheries, carry these materials coastwise to Liverpool and Hull, to the amount of more than 20,000 tons yearly; and at times when, without this employment, they would be laid up idle in harbour. 5th, The further conveyance of these materials from those ports, by river and canal navigation, to the Potteries, situated in one of the most inland parts of this kingdom. And, 6th, The re-conveyance of the finished goods to the different parts of this island, where they are shipped for every foreign market that is open to the earthenwares of England."

The remainder of Wedgwood's career need not be traced. There cannot be a question that, in enriching himself, he enriched the district generally; for the taste which he had created led to an increased demand from all quarters, which Staffordshire was fitted to satisfy. It was no longer deemed necessary to look to foreign countries for anything like ornamental works in pottery. Wedgwood had shown that Staffordshire

could not only produce such, but could invent wholly new and original kinds.

The whole of the wares hitherto mentioned in connection with the history of the Pottery district were distinct and different from porcelain or china. This latter is translucent and almost vitreous in its substance; but the clays and sands of Staffordshire, however they may be modified, produce only opaque varieties of ware. Why it was that China could produce such a beautiful substance, and that no one in Europe could equal it, was a standing subject of inquiry for a long period. Père d'Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary to China in the early part of the last century, was enabled to send home to France a few specimens of the materials employed in making porcelain, together with a description of two materials called kaolin and petuntse, and an account of the great Chinese manufactory at King-te-ching. Réaumur, in France, and Bötticher in Saxony, prosecuted researches into the best mode of imitating the Chinese porcelain; both succeeded to a certain extent, and gave origin, respectively, to the manufactories at Sèvres and Dresden. The attention of various persons in England was by this time attracted to the subject. Mr. Cooksworthy, a resident at Plymouth, discovered, after a good deal of research, that Cornwall contains clays almost precisely similar to the kaolin and petuntse sent to Europe by d'Entrecolles: the Cornish clay yielding the former, and Growan stone the latter. Cooksworthy procured a patent for his discovery, which was first tried at Bristol; but the enterprise failed; and the Staffordshire Potteries purchased the patent in 1777; since which time porcelain as well as pottery has been one of the staple products of the district.

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One of the most recent points of interest in the history of the manufacture is the revival of methods for making tesselated pavements, analogous in principle, if not in materials, to those made eighteen centuries ago by the Romans, of which many specimens have been met with in England. An opportunity will occur presently for saying a little on this matter. to the state of matters in the present day, everything that has ever yet been made at the Staffordshire Potteries is now made, or would readily be made, if the fashion were to revive; while every year introduces something new in the manufacture. What the total amount of the manufactures may be, it is quite impossible to say-or, at any rate, the estimate would be very little better than a rude guess. We know, from the official accounts, that the declared value of the earthenware exported in the years 1846, 1847, 1848, was about £800,000 per annum; but what proportion this bears to the value of the quantity retained for home consumption cannot be officially ascertained; for earthenware is, fortunately, not exciseable article.

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A PEEP INTO THE WORKSHOPS. We must now fulfil the promise of taking a glance into the interior of one of the banks, to see the