PLACES OF WORSHIP AND SCHOOLS.

403

and chapel accommodation, and the numbers of children who are brought within the operation of Sunday-school discipline, in Hanley and Shelton, we shall sum up our previous statements, with as much accuracy as we are enabled to do, from the best sources of information, by the following Table :

A TABLE of the several Places of Worship in Hanley and Shelton, the Seat-room therein, and the numbers of Children who receive the benefit of Sunday-school tuition in connexion with each of them.

From the above table there appears to be accommodation, in the two churches and the various chapels, for at least eleven thousand persons, a number perhaps equal to three-fifths of the existing population of the two Townships, and amply sufficient (supposing each community

to be fairly provided for,) to afford to the adult and rising population the benefit of the public services of religion; so that any extension of church or chapel-room for the present generation would seem to be quite superfluous. The provision for Sunday-school instruction will also appear to be commensurate with the wants of that class of the community on which it is bestowed. The numerous dissenting places of worship and tuition certainly exhibit the cause of the Established Church in the back-ground here, but this could hardly be otherwise when it is recollected that, until the year 1834, there was only one church, and one clergyman, and that the dissenting bodies have been long proceeding with the most systematic zeal and industry in advancing their particular interests. It is, nevertheless, doing them no more than justice to say, that their influence has not been exercised to undermine the foundations of true religion or social order, for, on the contrary, the various religious sects have generally withstood the inroads of heresy and infidelity, so that Unitarianism, under whose specious and genteel mask Deism and Scepticism often hide their natural faces, has not been able to maintain its ground, and a meeting-house, erected here in 1823, for the propagation of its doctrines, has been for several years past shut up, and lately taken down; and Socialism, the child and champion of Atheism, which disguises its anti-social principles by a lying title, and, like the Arch-tempter, seeks to destroy, by offering deleterious incense to human pride, has met with the most determined resistance, and been compelled to fly discomfited from the field.

And now, to conclude our Isms, and say one word concerning Schism, we confess our inability to comprehend the thing. It seems to be a sort of phantom, descried by each antagonist sect at the head of rival hosts, and regarded as a vain pretender, plumed with the fanciful colours of the peacock or the prism, who is trying, by

every kind of sophism, to allure simple souls to the standard of his voluntaryism.

Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of heavenly grace!"

Milton's Paradise Lost.

We may notice that three of the dissenting chapels in Hanley and Shelton are licensed for the celebration of marriage, and that during the three years and upwards that they have enjoyed this privilege, the following number of marriages have been contracted at each (to the conclusion of the year 1840,) viz.-at Bethesda 12, -at Hope Chapel 8,-at the Tabernacle 4.

There are a few registered Charities belonging to these Townships, of which we give a brief abstract from the printed Report of the Commissioners in 1824.

Mrs. Hannah Bagnall, by will, dated 6th November, 1727, gave, out of the rents of two pieces of land, called Withy Beds, in Clayton and Seabridge, 20s. per annum to the minister of Newcastle-underLyme, for preaching an anniversary sermon on the day of her death, and the residue for procuring poor children, inhabiting within the township of Shelton, or the township of Fenton Vivian, to be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Church Catechism; or, for relieving poor people within these townships. And she appointed the Bishop of Lichfield visitor of this charity, (who has appropriated one moiety of it, or £18 per annum, to the support of the schools connected with St. Mark's Church in Shelton.)

A house in Hanley was purchased, many years ago, by a Mr. Adams, and Mr. Taylor, of the Old Hall, Hanley, for the purpose of a free-school. It was, in 1824, occupied by an old man aged 86 (Peter Tock); and who, whilst he kept the school, received £6 a year from other property of Mr. Adams, but which annuity the commissioners considered as lost. (The family of Tock still enjoy the house, which is no better than a small hovel, and hardly worth notice for any purpose of charity.)

Ephraim Chatterley, Esq. by deed, dated 24th December, 1803, charged a rent of £8 8s. per annum upon certain copyhold land in Hanley and Shelton, called the Big Meadow, or Mason's Meadow, to be distributed, in bread, to the most necessitous poor of those townships -half on Christmas-Day, and half on Good-Friday, yearly. (This

charity is applied by the present trustees, Rev. R. E. Aitkins, and Mr. Thomas Taylor, as directed by the donor.)

George Broom, of Hanley, who died about 1779, left 20s. a year to the poor of that township, charged on six small houses in Hanley, which, in 1824, belonged to Mr. Thomas Taylor, who distributed bread on Christmas-Day to such as he pleased. (The property now belongs to Joseph Mayer, Esq., and the dole is distributed, by his orders, on the Sunday after Christmas-Day, at Hope Chapel, in bread.)

The Hanley and Shelton National Schools participate in the income of an investment of £3000, made by the late Dr. Woodhouse, rector of Stoke, for the support of the schools connected with the Church Establishment within the parish generally, of which mention will be made in our account of Stoke.

The expenditure of the Townships of Hanley and Shelton, for the support of their Police Establishment, has been for the last five years from £1000 to £2000 per annum, which is levied by a pound rate upon houses, manufactories, &c. as mentioned in a former chapter. They are assessed to the maintenance of the poor, in common with the rest of the parish of Stoke-upon-Trent, and contribute more than one-third of the aggregate amount. They are also equally rateable to the repairs, &c. of the parish-church, but the ascendancy of dissenting power reduces the law in this respect to a dead letter.

There are in Hanley and Shelton forty-five licensed inns, liquor-shops, or victualling-houses, and nearly 100 retail beer-houses. Here, too, we ought to observe, a Temperance Society has been established, to counteract the seductive influence of that unhappy propensity, by which a large portion of every manufacturing population is enslaved. The society reckons about 500 members, of whom many reformed drunkards are trophies and testimonials of its beneficial effects. They meet, for their temperate festivities, and for business, at the Bethesda School-rooms.

We must be excused, after our preceding details, from descending to the task of enumerating or speaking of sick clubs and benevolent societies; and we close our notices of these united townships by the following statements of their electoral strength in the Borough, as well as in the

northern division of the County of Stafford, shewing also how it has been exercised in the contests which have taken place since the Reform Act, and respecting which we must refer to the 3d chapter of our history.*

For the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent.

1832.-Registered voters-In Hanley, 190; in Shelton,

216.

Dec.-Polled for Wedgwood, 300; for Davenport, 120; for Heathcote, 207; for Mason, 56. 1837.—Registered voters-In Hanley, 199; in Shelton, 224.

July. Polled for Davenport, 124; for Copeland, 131; for Bridges, 188; for Sheridan, 190. 1840-1.-Registered electors-In Hanley, 242; in Shelton, 290.

For the Northern Division of the County of Stafford. 1832. Registered voters--In Hanley, 182; in Shelton, 108.

Dec.--Polled for Mosley, 209; for Buller, 224; for
Russell, 42.

N.B.-In the registers for 1837, and subsequently, the parish of Stoke is not subdivided into townships, so that the numbers polled in 1837, and then and afterwards registered for Hanley and Shelton, on the countylists, are not readily ascertainable.

In reviewing our two preceding chapters, we cannot but be sensible of having done very imperfect justice to the various subjects which we have presented to our readers, as constituting the modern history of Hanley and Shelton; and, that the little we have said respecting the earthen and china manufactures, which give to this district its peculiar eminence, must be considered as very inadequate to their claims upon the attention of a local historian, and as a

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