Edward Kinnersly, James Beech, Esquires, and Messrs. Higginson and Johnson. A collection of cottages, called Harriseyhead, is within this Hamlet.

THURSFIELD adjoins to Stadmerslow, on the west, and contains 559 acres; of which the principal part belongs to C. B. Lawton, Ralph Sneyd, and Edward Kinnersly, Esquires, and the Trustees of Miss Alsager. The village called Newchapel, is the Town-stead of Thursfield; and, no doubt, took its present name when the chapel was first erected, which, from documents that have come to our hands, we believe, was in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign; a sufficient length of time, to have rendered obsolete its now very incongruous name, and to have restored that of Thursfield, which may be supposed to have claim to a very high antiquity, and to be connected, if not coeval, with Thurs-day, which by the unanimous testimony of ancient authors, was the name given by our heathen ancestors, to the fifth day of the week, in honour of their god Thor, the Scandinavian Jupiter. At Newchapel is a free Grammar School, of the foundation of Doctor Robert Hulme, of Sandbach; who, by his Will, dated in 1714, devised an estate in Odd Rode (Cheshire), for its support, which now yields a rental of £100 per annum, or upwards.

The present chapel of Thursfield is a neat brick building, erected about eighty years ago, with a cupola and bell. It is well pewed, and will seat above three hundred persons. Though originally of the private foundation of the families of Bowyer (of Knipersly), Sneyd (of Bradwell), and Bourne (of Chell), the principal landowners, it has become a Perpetual Curacy, by augmentation from Queen Anne's Bounty. It was the only place of worship in this large parish, belonging to the Establishment, besides the Mother Church, until the erection of that of Tunstall, in 1832. It has a spacious cemetery, in which lies interred, Brindley the Engineer.

The twelfth and last Hamlet in Wolstanton Parish,

OBSERVATIONS ON RURAL NAMES.

131

and the least in the scale of population, is WEDGWOOD, having a small territory of 431 acres, which is principally the property of Lord Stowell, Ralph Sneyd, Esq., and Mrs. Smith; and in as much we have supposed Thursfield to have been named of the god Thor, so may the adjacent hamlet Wedgwood (q. d. Woden's-wood) have received its name from Woden, the Mars of the northern nations; though we submit this etymon with much diffidence,* we assume, however, with more confidence, that the various families of the name of Wedgwood, which are now, and have been long settled in this neighbourhood, derived their origin from this unimportant place, as we believe it has no namesake whatever in the "Villare Anglicum;" and we doubt not that it had the honour, at some now far by-gone period, of rearing and sending forth a race, whose name and fame should become familiar to the most distant parts of the civilized world.

It is remarkable, how very commonly the names of villages and hamlets in this vicinity, are to be found among the surnames of the present, or the former, population of the district; as, for instance, the family names of Burslem, Sneyd, Tunstall, Oldcot, Thursfield, Chatterley, Hanley, Bucknall, Bagnall, and Fenton; proving a fact, upon which we take leave to observe, that the early inhabitants of the country, who were the chief resident proprietors, whether gentlemen, or yeomen, and who exercised none of the manual arts of a Smith, Wright, Tailor, Weaver, Baker, &c. nor were seated at Wood, Ford, Heath, Marsh, or Green, were generally designated from their native villages, and have transmitted their rural patronymics to their now distant posterity.

In a Parochial document of the date of 1765, which has come to our hands, the annual value of the rateable property within the eight Hamlets forming the Chapelry of Newchapel, or north side of Wolstanton Parish, is

* Wednesbury, (olim, Wodensbury) in the south of Staffordshire, is now pronounced Wedgbury.

stated to amount to £2338. Now, at the distance of eighty-two years, (i. e. in 1837) the same property, improved and expanded as it has been by Arts, Manufactures, and Mining operations, is assessed to the Poor's Rate, (not at its full value or rental, but less by about one-tenth,) at the annual sum of £28,494.

Before we take leave of the Parish of Wolstanton, we shall give a Table of its Political Statistics, shewing its Population in 1831, the number of its Electors standing upon the Registers for the Northern Division of the County of Stafford, in 1832, when the Registration commenced, and in the month of December of which year, the first election after the passing of the Reform Act took place, and gave rise to a vigorous trial of strength between political parties. Jesse Watts Russell, Esq. was the only candidate in the Tory, or Conservative interest ; Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart. and Edward Buller, Esq. came forward on the Liberal, or Whig interest, and were both returned. We also add the Election returns of 1837, when another similar contest took place, in which the Hon. William Bingham Baring was the Conservative candidate, and returned by a considerable majority over the two former Members, (Sir O. Mosley being left in the minority, and superseded by Mr. Baring.)

These statements will serve to shew, not only the weight which the Parish of Wolstanton holds in the scale of the County representation, but the fluctuation of political sentiment, during the five years which immediately followed our Parliamentary Reformation.

The gross return of the Poll, for the northern Division in 1832, was, for Mosley, 4777;-for Buller, 4595 ;—and for Russell, 3387.

The like in 1837-for Baring, 4233;-for Buller, 3182;-and for Mosley, 2351.

The total number of the Electors who polled in 1832, was 7752, and in 1837, only 7182. (Sir Oswald Mosley having withdrawn after the first day's poll.)

The Registers for the year 1837, do not divide the Parish of Wolstanton into Townships; we are, therefore, only able to give the gross number of the Electors in the Parish, standing on the Register for that year, and of those who polled at the Election (31st July, and 1st August, 1837,) when W. B. Baring, Esq., and Edward Buller, Esq., were returned, which are as follows:

Total number of Electors registered, 1837, = 576. Increase in the Parish since 1832,

123.

Polled for Baring, 375; (increase over Russell in 1832, = 102.)

Polled for Buller, 93; (decrease below his return in 1832, = 54.)

Polled for Mosley, 157; (decrease below his return in 1832, = 28.)

Total number polled in Wolstanton Parish, 443.

We have thus taken a rapid survey of the whole Parish of Wolstanton, of which Tunstall forms the most important member, so as fully to justify the prophetic title given to it by its Saxon owners, of the Town's-deal,* for, in respect to its present consideration and value, it forms a great deal indeed of the Parish to which it belongs. Having intimated, before, our opinion that the Parish of Wolstanton formerly embraced Keele,† we shall submit our reasons, which are these,--that the church-yard of Keele is still considered the freehold of the parson of Wolstanton;-that the Church is not noticed in Pope Nicholas's Taxation, the earliest General Record of Church property which our national archives contain (of the date of 1291), except as a Capella with Wolstanton, in which Parish there was then no other chapel; and, that the great tithes of Keele appear always to have gone with Wolstanton; at least, since the dissolution of the order of Knights Hospitallers, in the reign of Henry VIII.‡

In concluding our account of this first portion of the Borough, we must be allowed to give a sketch of ancient family biography, intimately connected with Tunstall.

* See Page 70.

+ Page 111, 113.-We take occasion, here, to correct an error in the Pedigree of the Sneyd Family (p. 83,) as to the date of the erection of Keel Hall, which should be about 1580, instead of 1590. The mansion has since undergone various alterations; and we understand is about to be still further enlarged and embellished; its worthy owner being attached to architectural and picturesque alterations in his domain and

estates.

See note, p. 81.