ITS HISTORY, STATISTICS, CIVIL POLITY, & TRAFFIC,

WITH

BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL NOTICES OF EMINENT
INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES;

ALSO, THE

MANORIAL HISTORY OF NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME,

AND

Incidental Notices of other Neighbouring Places & Objects;

BY

JOHN WARD.

THE APPENDIX CONTAINS MANY ANCIENT AND CURIOUS CHARTERS
AND DOCUMENTS NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED,

AND

THE WORK IS EMBELLISHED WITH A VARIETY OF PLATES.

LONDON:
ONDO

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY W. LEWIS & SON, FINCH-LANE.

MDCCCXLIII.

PREFACE.

THIS WORK, having been commenced under the sanction of another name, the individual who now avows himself as its author, considers it necessary, for the purpose of justifying the claim he makes to its paternity, to give some explanation respecting the manner in which it was begun and carried forward, and has at length arrived at its close; and having throughout the work assumed editorial dignity, and written in the first person plural, he will, in order to avoid ambiguity, descend to the familiar style, and speak in his own person.

In the summer of 1838, Mr. Simeon Shaw, who had just before issued a prospectus of an intended History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, to be published in monthly parts, but had not then brought out a single number, called upon me respecting his proposed work, when I told him I was in possession of a variety of materials, chiefly of an antiquarian character, relating to the northern portion of the Pottery District, which might be serviceable for the commencement of his undertaking, and which I had collected with the view of writing a similar history, should I ever find leisure to do so; I told him, further, that I was quite willing to supply all I had in my possession, provided I were permitted to exercise a control over the publication, so long as I should furnish those materials. I stipulated, in fact, that not a page of the Work should be printed, whilst I remained connected with it, but what I should either write myself, or peruse in manuscript and approve. Mr. Shaw at once acceded to the rather arbitrary terms I propounded, and as he had some highly respectable names on his Subscription List, from whom he had promises of assistance, my idea then was, that, through their aid, he might be enabled to carry forward the Work, after it had passed the limits to which my attention was more immediately directed. I was aware that a