Potted Histories

Tag: personalities

  • Business in Great Waters

    The Britannic, painted white for her service as a troop ship during the Boer War.
    Source: Bertram Hayes, Hull Down (London, 1925).

    Edward John Smith, the future captain of the Titanic had been at sea for the better part of 15 years when he made the switch from the sailing ships of Andrew Gibson &Co, and joined the White Star Line. He had been seduced following a visit he made to the SS Britannic, but though he was quickly taken onto the new company’s books, he did not get his longed-for berth on that ship for a few years yet. At first he served from March 1880 to March 1882, as fourth and later third officer aboard a much smaller vessel the SS Celtic commanded by Captain Benjamin Gleadell. Though Smith had a master’s certificate, so too did many others in the White Star line and promotion to the coveted captaincy had to be earned. Steamships also demanded a different set of skills in an officer than a sailing ship and these had to be learnt. The steamers were passenger liners rather than cargo vessels. They carried mostly emigrants, but also many wealthy passengers, whose continued goodwill had to be cultivated, so good social skills needed to be honed. The first few years with White Star were in effect a second apprenticeship for Smith.

    He did advance pretty quickly as it turned out. After the Celtic, from March 1882 to March 1884, he served in the Pacific on the San Francisco-Yokohama-Hong Kong run, aboard the SS Coptic as its second officer under Captain William Kidley. Then from March 1884 to July 1885, he was second officer aboard his favourite ship the Britannic under the command of Captain Hamilton Perry, before becoming first officer from July 1885 to April 1887, aboard the SS Republic under Captain Peter Irving. These were all ships he would later command.

    He was by this time living permanently in Liverpool and apart from some cousins and nephews, most of his immediate family had also left the Potteries. His mother, half-sister, and brother-in-law now lived in Runcorn and Joseph Hancock would leave the sea in a few years and going into partnership he would set up as a ship’s stores dealer in Birkenhead.

    Eleanor Smith and their daughter Helen Melville Smith.

    Ted was also on the verge of his own settled family life for in January 1887 at Winwick parish Church near Warrington, Edward John Smith married a farmer’s daughter, Sarah Eleanor Pennington. They initially set up home nearby in Tuebrook, but soon moved to one of the wealthier parts of Liverpool to be nearer the docks. The couple seem to have maintained a good, loving relationship thereafter, despite Ted’s long periods at sea. Eleanor, as she preferred to be called, referred to her husband as ‘Ted’ or ‘Teddy’ and Smith spoke of his wife as ‘my only dear one.’

    Almost as a wedding present, from April to August 1887, Smith was given temporary command of the SS Republic before being transferred back as first officer on the Britannic, staying with the ship until February 1888. That month he applied for and gained his Extra Master Mariners certificate of competency, albeit on the second attempt, having failed the navigation section on his first try, while in August he added to his qualifications by joining the Royal Naval Reserve, undergoing the required training early the next year. As a lieutenant in the Reserve he and any ship under his command could be called upon to serve in times of war and provided that enough members of the crew were also in the Reserve his ships could fly the Blue Ensign of the RNR. As a result of these feathers in his cap, from April to May 1888, Smith took on his first permanent command, the now ageing SS Baltic and so became a fully-fledged White Star line captain.

    Smith went on to captain many more White Star ships over the next few years: the Adriatic; the Britannic; the Cufic; the Celtic, followed by Coptic in the Australian service; the Runic; and Germanic, the identical sister of the Britannic.

    Lieutenant E.J. Smith c.1895

    The 1890’s were a time of both sad and happier events in Ted Smith’s life. In 1893, his mother Catherine died in Runcorn whilst Smith was at sea, while in 1895 first his brother-in-law, William Harrington, died in the Potteries on 1 March, and on 1 May his half-brother and former captain, Joseph Hancock, collapsed and died of a heart attack in the street in Liverpool. On a happier note, it seems to have been in 1895, that Smith made a visit back to the Potteries for a school reunion in honour of his old schoolmaster Alfred Smith. Then in 1898, he and Eleanor had a baby girl, their only child, whom they named Helen Melville Smith. She like her mother later preferred to use her second name Melville, or ‘Mel’ for short. Though he was often away, Smith doted on his daughter, whom he called his ‘Gillie’ (‘girly’) or ‘Babs’ (‘baby’) sending her little notes from abroad when he was away and buying presents and organising parties for her on his brief periods ashore.

    The longest single command of Captain Smith’s career was that of the SS Majestic, from July 1895 to November 1902. He would take a break to command the Germanic from December 1902 to May 1903, whilst the Majestic underwent a refit, but then returned to his former command from May 1903 to June 1904. His time aboard the Majestic coincided with the outbreak of the Second Boer War in South Africa. Because of his rank in the Royal Naval Reserve, he could be called upon to serve in times of war and he now did so. Captain Smith twice took the Majestic to South Africa, transporting troops to the seat of war and bringing wounded men home. For his work during the war, Smith like all transport captains later received the Transport Medal, which he henceforth wore proudly on his uniform.

    During the years of his captaincy of the Majestic, Smith earned a fine reputation amongst both his crews and the passengers who regularly sailed the Atlantic. Despite the beard he now sported and grizzled looks, he was softly-spoken and easy going, though he was a noted stickler when it came to ship’s discipline and had been known to bark out an order that brought many an errant seaman back to his duty with a bump. Increasingly, more and more passengers chose to sail with Captain Smith rather than any other because of his affability and because he was an excellent host. Also, though he was known for pushing his ships hard through all weathers, thereby earning the nickname ‘the Storm King’, by the standards of the time he was considered to be an excellent sailor and a ‘safe captain’.

    Amongst his regular passengers, he now numbered British aristocrats such as the Duke of Sutherland and the Earl and Countess of Rothes and American millionaires such as John D. Rockefeller, George Widener, John Jacob Astor and J. Pierpont Morgan, the latter becoming a good personal friend, whom he visited with during his stopovers in the States. Such stellar passenger lists became so regular a feature on his ships that by 1900 Smith had become popularly known as ‘the millionaire’s captain’. Indeed, many of the first class passengers who later sailed aboard the Titanic had travelled with Captain Smith on more than one occasion.

    Smith with one of his dogs.

    Smith also met or knew many other famous people of the day as they crossed the Atlantic. Rudyard Kipling and his family travelled on the Majestic, as too did Henry Morton Stanley, the man who had ‘presumed’ so famously when he found Dr Livingstone in Africa. Other notable figures who sailed with Smith included the Joseph Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies; the Fleet Street journalist W. T. Stead, who is said to have included Smith in several of his short stories. Another notable passenger, the American writer Kate Douglas-Wiggin, the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, described in her autobiography how during his earlier captaincy of the Britannic, Captain Smith had played the matchmaker and introduced her to her future husband.

    Because of such a wide acquaintance, Smith enjoyed a lively social life ashore, especially in New York visiting his friends such as Pierpont Morgan, Kate Douglas-Wiggin and her husband, attending fetes and parties and according to one newspaper report, he was also a regular at many of New York’s clubs and societies.

    On a personal level, Smith was noted as being well-read and extremely well informed on current events, which was hardly surprising given his wide and influential acquaintance. He was a smoker, preferring cigars, which he smoked through a holder and his daughter later recalled that she would only be let into the room if she promised to be good and not disturb the cloud of blue smoke that hung around her father’s head. Smith enjoyed a drink too, though never on duty. At home, he was extremely fond of his pet dogs and enjoyed many hours ashore out walking with them, though they seem to have been something of a nuisance to his wife whilst he was away at sea.

    Reference: G. J. Cooper, Titanic Captain. The Life of Edward John Smith (2011) pp. 56-108.

    Images: Author’s collection.

  • Down to the Sea in Ships

    Commander Edward John Smith in his summer uniform in later life. The grand old skipper of the White Star line had come up the hard way from ship’s boy to senior captain.

    Edward John Smith, the future captain of the ill-fated White Star liner RMS Titanic, was born at 86 Well Street, Hanley on 27 January 1850. He was the only child of pottery presser Edward Smith and Catherine, formerly Hancock nee Marsh, who had two surviving children from her previous marriage. The Smiths started out as an ordinary working-class family like most of their neighbours, but their fortunes improved somewhat when Catherine Smith opened up the family home as a small grocer’s store. As a result, young Ted Smith as he was known to family and friends, enjoyed a relatively good education at the Etruria British School. Shortly after his father’s death in 1864, he finished his schooling and for a few years worked as a steam hammer operator at the Etruria Forge. He thus seemed set for an ordinary working life in the area like his ancestors before him, but he was already feeling the pull of the sea thanks to his half-brother Joseph Hancock.

    Joseph was Catherine Smith’s eldest child, seventeen years older than Ted, who in the same year that his younger half-brother was born had gone to sea and gradually worked his way up through the merchant ranks. There had been long voyages and adventures galore, but dangers too such as in 1856, when whilst he was serving as a mate on the barque Hymen, the ship had been captured by pirates off the coast of Morocco. Joseph and his crew mates had been taken ashore and held as prisoners for nearly three weeks until the Royal Navy launched a raid on the pirate camp and freed the men. This hair-raising experience did not dent Joseph’s love of his career, though, nor hinder his rise to command his own vessel and by the time young Smith was 17 years old, Joseph was the captain of the trading ship Senator Weber. Ted was keen to follow Joseph into the service, so to prevent him from running away and serving with strangers, Joseph agreed to take Smith aboard his own vessel as ship’s boy. Ted quit his job at the forge and in February 1867 with a group of friends he travelled to Liverpool, where he was signed on as an apprentice to the shipping company of Andrew Gibson and Co.

    Joseph’s vessel, the Senator Weber was a 1,297 ton sailing ship then being loaded across the Mersey at Birkenhead’s West Float Dock and Ted was to be one of the crew of 26 men and boys. There were three ships boys, another of them, Thomas Foster, also came from Hanley, so perhaps Ted was not the only boy that Joseph had inspired.

    This first voyage was a long one to Hong Kong, a round-the-world voyage via the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. The Suez Canal would not be open for two years, so there was a long haul around Africa, past India and up through the South China Sea, braving all that nature would send their way. It, therefore, took five months to reach Hong Kong. There was a ship’s log for the voyage but there are no entries in it until the Senator Weber reached Hong Kong. Then, there are numerous entries noting desertions and bad behaviour amongst the crew. Amongst the small knot of persistent troublemakers was one named Edward Smith. This was not our Ted Smith, but an able seaman with the same name, a 20 year old man from Scarborough who annoyed Joseph so much that he eventually flogged him and then had him jailed for six weeks, by the end of which time the Senator Weber had sailed on leaving him behind.

    The ship stayed in the general region for some time, possibly transporting goods short distances to earn extra revenue prior to their departure. This final leave-taking, though, suffered a delay as on the evening of 8 September 1867, a typhoon of several hours duration struck Hong Kong and did some serious damage to many of the ships moored in the harbour. The Senator Weber was one of these, being thrown together in a jumble with several other ships and suffering considerable damage as a result. The repairs required some time to carry out. Once she was back in a reasonable state, though, the Senator Weber set off on its long journey back home.

    They did not retrace their journey out and instead followed the trades, sailing east to San Francisco, pausing only when a sickly passenger Henry K. Jones died mid-Pacific and was buried at sea. At San Francisco 14 men including Thomas Foster from Hanley deserted and had to be replaced. At this point, Ted was unofficially promoted to 3rd mate, probably to help existing 3rd mate to get the new crew in line. From San Francisco, the ship sailed south to Callao, the principal port of Peru. Then on to the nearby Chincha Isles, to fill its hold with guano which was its final cargo. The ship then made its way around Cape Horn and a couple of months later returned to Europe, docking in Antwerp where the crew went their separate ways. Joseph and Ted then returned to the Potteries for a few months. According to one childhood friend, ‘After that first voyage Ted returned home to thrill the youth of the town with his stories of having sailed to America, of his experience in California, where the ship on which he made his first voyage touched. And with his mind firmly made up to spend the rest of his days on the ocean.’

    After Christmas and New Year at home, Ted went to Cardiff in February 1869 to join the Senator Weber for a second voyage to the far side of the world, but this time to Japan, which had only opened its ports to foreigners in 1854. Ted served as 3rd mate for this voyage which was even longer, the ship being away for 19 months, which is surprising as the Suez Canal was now open and there is little indication of where the ship went. Its final destination, though, were the Lobos de Afuera islands, another group of guano islands off the coast of Peru. Guano seems to have been a real money spinner for Andrew Gibson and Co. and it is also interesting to note that the future ‘Millionaire’s Captain’ of the glamorous White Star Line began his career aboard ships transporting ossified bird dung.

    The Sailor’s Home, Liverpool.

    After this voyage, Ted Smith set out on his own as an able seaman aboard a couple of other ships, the Amoy and the Madge Wildfire, sailing to North America. By now he had started lodging at the Sailors Home in Liverpool with occasional trips home to the Potteries. He and Joseph were in Well Street for the 1871 census, but this is the last time either were listed on a local census return.

    In 1871, Ted Smith applied for his 2nd mate’s certificate of competency which he gained after sitting and passing the required exams and over the next two years he served in that capacity aboard the ships Record, Agra and N. Mosher. As a 2nd mate he still served as a seaman, but as a sort of qualified foreman he had his own cabin at the rear of the ship and was in charge of the starboard watch looking after the ropes on the starboard and rear of the ship. In 1873, he passed his exams for 1st mate giving him charge of the port watch in charge of the port ropes and the bow of the ship. As mate, he no longer worked in the rigging, he was instead the captain’s executive officer – he saw that the skipper’s orders were carried out. In this capacity he served for three voyages on the ship Arzilla, under Captain C. E. Durkee. Then in 1875, at the age of 25, Smith sat and passed his master’s certificate of competency. This enabled him to command his own ship. To commemorate his success, he was presented with a loving cup dedicated to ‘Captain E. J. Smith’, the first time he had ever been called by this title. He had to wait for a year though, before he got a ship of his own.

    A ship of his own. Smith appears in the papers as the captain of the Lizzie Fennell.

    Smith’s first command was the 1040 ton sailing ship Lizzie Fennell, which he took on a ten month trip to Callao in Peru, again returning with a cargo of guano. The voyage does not seem to have been troubled by the mass desertions suffered by the Senator Weber, though there were some deaths. An Italian crewman died off the coast of Chile and three Scandinavians all drowned off Peru in October 1876, but details of how and why they died are lacking as no ship’s log has survived.

    For the next three years, Captain Smith and the crew of the Lizzie Fennell led a seemingly blameless existence transporting cotton and other assorted goods between Britain, Canada and the United States. In later life Smith seems to have had fond memories of his time aboard the Lizzie Fennell, during which time he made a number of valued acquaintances whom he still remembered many years later. But he was not blind to the fact that there were great changes happening in the shipping world where steamers were becoming more popular and profitable, and that a whole new (and much more comfortable) career could be carved out on the big passenger liners. The transatlantic passenger steamers run out of Liverpool by the prestigious White Star line had caught his attention. On seeing the White Star ship SS Britannic in dock, Smith commented to his nephew J. W. S. Harrington, who was serving in his crew, that he would happily accept a junior position to serve on such a fine vessel. A few days later Smith managed to get a tour of the Britannic, which made his mind up for him. Quitting his job as the captain of the Lizzie Fennell, he left the employ of Andrew Gibson and Co. and applied to and joined the White Star line as a junior officer determined once more to make his way to the top.

    It would take years to achieve of course, but Smith was agreeable, highly intelligent, hard-working and blessed with the ability to succeed, and he would indeed rise to the peak of his career and make his fortune with White Star. However, it was also a fateful move that led ultimately to a cold, tragic night in April 1912 off the Grand Banks of Nova Scotia, when at the helm of the company’s new big ship he ventured into an ice field and sailed into history.

    G. J. Cooper, Titanic Captain, the Life of Edward John Smith (Stroud, 2011), pp.9-55; Allen’s Indian Mail, 4 November 1867, p.890.

    All images, author’s collection

  • Birth of a Fictional Landscape

    The statue of Arnold Bennett. Stoke-on-Trent’s most famous literary figure, situated outside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Hanley.

    In 1898, A Man from the North, the first novel by a then unknown author named E. A. Bennett was published. It was the story of a young man who had arrived in London keen to set himself up as a writer and though readers at the time would not know it, the novel was largely autobiographical, Arnold Bennett himself had arrived in London from the Potteries and found work editing a women’s magazine and he penned the novel in hopes of breaking into the serious literary market.

    In truth the book was something of a failure, but it laid the groundwork for the stories that Bennett is still best remembered for. A Man from the North is largely set in the capital, but when the protagonist takes a journey back home for a funeral, the reader is given a brief glimpse of the curious parochial industrial landscape in ‘the north’ that the hero had escaped from. The towns he mentions are Bursley (Burslem) ‘the mother town’, Turnhill (Tunstall) ‘the northern outpost’ or ‘The bailiwick of Turnhill’ and Knype (Stoke-upon-Trent) that housed the train station and boasted the paramount local football team. Though not named as such until his next novel came out four years later, this is the first glimpse we get of ‘The Five Towns’, Bennett’s fictional version of the Potteries he had grown up in.

    That next novel was Anna of the Five Towns, published in 1902, in which the list of Bennett’s fictional pottery towns was expanded upon with the inclusion of Hanbridge (Hanley) ‘the Chicago of the Five Towns’ as Bennett described the commercial centre in one of his short stories, and Longshaw (Longton) the grittiest and most industrialised of the towns. Missing from this list, of course is Fenton ‘the town Arnold Bennett forgot’. In fact he did not forget Fenton, he simply felt that euphonically ‘The Five Towns’ sounded better than ‘The Six Towns’ and he adapted his topography accordingly.

    As the list of novels and short stories Bennett had published grew, so too did the make-believe landscape they were set in. There were some smaller Five Towns settlements like Bleakridge (Cobridge), Shawport (Longport), Hillport (Porthill) or Sneyd (Trentham), while beyond the borders lay Oldcastle (Newcastle) and Axe (Leek). Looking inward, Burslem saw many of its streets and buildings renamed or repurposed in Bennett’s fictional Bursley. Here Swan Bank became Duck Bank, Waterloo Road became Trafalgar Road, Nile Street was changed to Aboukir Street, The Leopard Inn became The Tiger and the George Hotel was renamed The Dragon. These were just some some of the numerous thoroughfares and locations frequented by the likes of Edwin Clayhanger and Hilda Lessways, Anna Tellwright and Willie Price, Simon Fuge, Denry Machin, the Countess of Chell, Constance and Sophia Baines and a host of other local fictional characters.

    Three of the plaques on The Bursley Trail

    In honour of the fictional landscape Bennett created, a number of buildings and sites around Burslem and elsewhere now form part of ‘The Bursley Trail’ and carry blue plaques presented by the Arnold Bennett Society, which identify their literary counterparts.

    Reference: See the novels of Arnold Bennett, notably A Man from the North, Anna of the Five Towns, The Old Wives Tale, the Clayhanger Trilogy, The Card, and the short story collections Tales of the Five Towns, Grim Smile of the Five Towns, The Matador of the Five Towns.

  • Buffalo Bill Rides in… and Bows Out

    Buffalo Bill Cody with some of the Red Indians of his Wild West Show.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    On 17 August 1891, former hunter and US army scout turned impresario, William Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, opened his ‘Wild West Show’ for the first of six days of performances in the Potteries. The show was making a tour of Britain and had arrived from Sheffield several days earlier in three trains comprising 76 carriages, bearing 250 performers, several hundred horses and dozens of bison. Cody and his company also brought enough scaffolding with them to build a pavilion that could seat 15,000 spectators, which was quickly constructed not far from the train station in Stoke by local workers. A Red Indian village was also built nearby for the many native American performers and their families, which became a great attraction during their stay. In the main pavilion there were two shows a day at 3pm and 6pm and though it rained on the first day the weather improved as the week went on. Sure enough, as elsewhere, thousands of local people turned up to watch the shows, one of which a reporter for the Sentinel described briefly for their readers:

    ‘Notwithstanding a persistent downpour, an audience assembled in numbers large enough to crowd the popular parts of the stands, and though with more favourable weather a better display might have been expected, the full programme was given and all seemed intensely delighted. The shooting feats of Miss Annie Oakley, Mr. C. L. Daley, Johnnie Baker, and General Cody [sic] himself, created a great deal of enthusiasm, whilst the antics of the bucking horses, and the agility of the cowboys, caused considerable interest, as well as amusement. The attack on the Deadwood coach was performed in a manner quite realistic, and the concluding tableau, an attack by Indians on a frontier man’s cabin, gave all present a very true idea of what a pioneer’s life was like a few years ago on the Far West. During the afternoon the Indian encampment was visited by thousands of interested spectators.

    For the evening performance the ground was lit up by Wells’ patent lights. Unfortunately, the wet and boisterous weather prevented the public from gaining an accurate idea as to the capabilities, and must have rendered the performance, especially the shooting, a matter of some considerable difficulty. Nevertheless, there was a large attendance of spectators, and the programme was gone through without a hitch. General Cody was loudly cheered when he made his parting bow.’

    Thirteen years later on 21 October 1904, the people of the Potteries witnessed the last ever performance by ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’ to be held in Britain. The season had started here earlier that year on 25 April, most of the animals and some of the cowboys and stable hands having overwintered at Etruria, while the bulk of the company had gone home. Now after their last tour of the country, the show made a final return to the area prior to departing for the Continent. They signed off with two final performances held on this day at the Agricultural Show Fields at Birches Head. The evening performance attracted a crowd of 12,500 people and at the end of the show the performers were bid goodbye by the audience spontaneously singing Auld Lang Syne.  

    Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel, 22 August 1891, p.3; 25 April 1904; 22 October 1904.

  • Reg Mitchell Takes the Proverbial

    Colin Melbourne’s statue of R. J. Mitchell
    outside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery,
    Hanley.

    In 1911, long before he went on to design his world-beating racing planes and later the Supermarine Spitfire, 16 year old Reginald Joseph Mitchell, served a local apprenticeship. Originally from Butt Lane near Kidsgrove, but raised in Normacot, Reg was enrolled as a lowly apprentice engineer at Messrs Kerr, Stuart and Co, locomotive engineers in Fenton. Before moving on to the drawing office where he would make his name, he like the other apprentices had to spend time in the workshops getting his hands dirty working on the firm’s machines. Reg’s pragmatic father Herbert saw this as a sensible grounding for his ambitious son, but young Mitchell loathed this introduction to his profession, hating the grime-caked overalls he had to wear and the monotony of the work that kept him from what he really wanted to do. He was also less than enamoured with the workshop foreman.

    One of the first jobs that Reg had when he started at Kerr, Stuart was the traditional one of tea boy, brewing up for the other apprentices and the foreman, the latter, though regularly complained that Mitchell’s tea tasted like piss. Tired of his grumbling, Reg decided that if that was what he thought, then that was what he would get. The next morning Reg arrived at work and as normal took the kettle to the wash room, but instead of filling it with water he urinated into it, then boiled the kettle and made tea. Warning his fellow apprentices not to drink, Reg served the foreman as usual. The man took a sip, then a larger gulp and said, “Bloody good cup of tea, Mitchell, why can’t you make it like this every day?” 

    Reference: Gordon Mitchell, R.J. Mitchell, from Schooldays to Spitfire, pp. 21- 25

  • Mow Cop Castle

    Mow Cop Castle from the Staffordshire side

    To the north of Stoke-on-Trent and standing smack on the Staffordshire-Cheshire Border, the hill of Mow Cop dominates the respective skylines of both counties and is also very much a natural demarcation point. To the south, the low rolling hills of North Staffordshire leading up to the hill seem to suddenly give way to the vast flat expanse of the Cheshire plain on its northern side. Nowhere is this better appreciated than from the highest point on the hill, where a circular stone tower, low wall and archway sit perched on a great prow of millstone grit rock, part of a jagged ridge of stones that appears to erupt from the surrounding greenery.

    In truth the ruggedness of the hill owes as much to centuries of quarrying as to the vagaries of nature, while the apparently ancient ruin, known to one and all as Mow Cop Castle, is in fact South Cheshire’s and North Staffordshire’s most famous folly, dating back at best to the late 1740s. Though solid documentary evidence relating to the ‘castle’s’ construction seems to have vanished over time, it’s most likely that it was actually built as Medieval-style summerhouse paid for by the wealthy Wilbraham family of Rode Hall, Cheshire, who were perhaps keen to mark the edge of their lands and make use of the spot from which to admire the spectacular views of the two counties. Construction of the tower, archway and wall seems to have been carried out by a family named Harding whose descendants then became keyholders for the tower under the Wilbrahams. However,  either the Wilbrahams or the Hardings had slipped up in constructing the tower where they did, as by straddling the border it infringed upon the Staffordshire estate of the Sneyd family of Keele Hall. There are confused scraps of folklore suggesting that this fact was know from the earliest times and that the Wilbrahams and Sneyds held joint ownership and access to the site, but again there is no conclusive evidence of this and arguments as to which family actually owned Mow Cop Castle would blight its early history and lead to litigation in the mid 19th century.

    The tower today is nothing more than an empty stone shell, with bars on the windows and a grill over the doorway stopping anyone from getting inside, but when it was first constructed it was much more useful, comprising a lower and upper storey with a staircase, wooden floors, a roof, windows and a stout wooden door at its entrance. Keys to the door could be obtained at times from Rode Hall itself or – for the convenience of visitors – from a cottage near to the summer-house. Indeed, it appears that from very early in its history, the Wilbrahams were quite happy to let members of the public make use of the tower for their own recreations. As a result, the castle became a favourite picnic spot and playground for the locals and despite the competing claims over the years of families and landowners as to who owned what, the castle came to belong very much to the people of Mow Cop itself and their voices would be loud in determining its fate.

    A memorial stone commemorating the first camp
    meeting held at Mow Cop in 1807.

    Primitive Methodism

    The hill and castle also hold a special place in the religious history of the region as Mow Cop was very much the spiritual home to the Primitive Methodist movement that originated in North Staffordshire in the early part of the 19th century and the castle its unofficial symbol. The movement’s founders, two Potteries-born Wesleyan preachers, Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, were hoping to restore a spirit of revivalism to mainstream Methodism. Inspired by tales of American camp meetings which they felt mirrored the  outdoor preaching of John Wesley and the early Methodists, the men organised the first in a series of camp meetings at Mow Cop on May 31, 1807. This drew a sizeable crowd and resulted in many converts, but despite its success the Wesleyan Church frowned on the fervent brand of evangelism employed and refused to recognise these converts, while Bourne and Clowes were reprimanded for their actions. There was probably an element of snobbishness in the censure too, as both Bourne and Clowes were uneducated working men and their brand of Methodism was decidedly working class in its following, many of Bourne’s and Clowes’s early converts being some of the roughest of working class men and women from in and around Mow Cop and the Potteries.

    As Bourne and Clowes refused to stop holding further open-air meetings, both men were dismissed from the church and after failing to gain re-admittance in 1810 they took the step of founding Primitive Methodism, and in February 1812 in a meeting held at Tunstall, they took the name The Society of the Primitive Methodists. From these humble beginnings the Primitive Methodists would grow into a considerable faction of the Methodist church with a wide following across Britain and branches in the United States and around the British Empire and maintained their independence until the Methodist Union of 1932.


    Kings of the Castle

    The Wilbrahams left Rode Hall for Lancashire in 1800 and though some repairs were made to the castle over the years, it suffered the ravages of time, neglect and petty vandalism. The floors and wooden fittings were pilfered or destroyed, the door was taken down and put into storage, while the Wilbrahams and Sneyds still debated their claims to the site. Matters came to a head in 1847 when the Wilbrahams refitted the old door to the tower and locked it, which effectively restricted access to the Sneyds and the public at large who had previously had free access to the structure. The next year the Sneyd family’s men broke into the tower which act resulted in a court case in 1850 that sought to establish who actually owned the castle. However, faced with a baffling array of contradictory evidence, the jury in the case returned the verdict that the Wilbrahams owned the castle but the Sneyds owned the land, which left them back at square one. The judge refused to accept this fudged verdict and instead pronounced a joint ownership and that henceforth both families should hold keys to the castle, joint responsibilities for its upkeep and with a few provisos both families had to maintain public access to the hill and castle.

    However, probably as a result of this apportioning of responsibility the castle gradually fell into a state of complete neglect over the next half a century and by the beginning of the 20th century had effectively been reduced to the bare stone shell seen today. Only the locals seem to have continued to appreciate the castle and as was seen when the castle passed to its last private owner they rallied to its cause.

    By the late 19th century most of the quarries that had dotted Mow Cop had closed down, however, in 1918 and 1922, a local businessman, Joseph Lovatt, bought up the competing land rights from the Wilbraham and Sneyd trustees and having cleared the debris from some of the old quarries near to the castle, he began fresh diggings for building material. Though he was himself a Methodist with an interest in preserving Mow Cop Castle (which he now owned) Lovatt’s actions raised fears amongst the locals that his quarrying might undermine or damage its foundations. Moreover, Lovatt fenced off the castle, which increased local ire at being excluded from their local beauty spot and they protested and eventually broke down the walls and fencing. This prompted a second court case to determine the future of the castle, the villagers arguing that they had common rights to use the castle and its environs. The case dragged on for three years and when it finally concluded the judge pronounced that the castle was not built on common land and that the rights of the locals were more a matter of accepted custom than a matter of law. Though the old custom carried some weight, the problem was that no one was sure exactly what their right of access to the castle entailed and the local authorities on either side of the county border had made no efforts to clarify these.

    Lovatt may have won the case, but it had not done his reputation any favours and he soon determined to get this troublesome parcel of land off his hands as soon as possible. To this end in 1927, he offered it to the Bourne Trust, the successors to the Primitive Methodist movement, these being an obvious choice to pass the site on to. After careful consideration, though, the Trust determined that its upkeep was beyond their means and refused to take up Lovatt’s offer. So, in 1935, Lovatt offered the castle and six acres of land including the famous local stone pillar Old Man of Mow, to the National Trust. This was accepted and on 30 May 1937, the deeds were formally handed over at a grand ceremony attended by ten thousand people.

    Since then the National Trust has maintained the structure pretty much in the state that they received it. Matters of ownership and public access are a thing of the past and though the castle itself is now closed for safety’s sake and to dissuade potential vandals, people can still visit and walk around the structure, while its hilltop vantage point with its impressive views across two counties is open to all.

    Looking out over Staffordshire from Mow Cop

    Reference: Philip R. Leese, Mow Cop: A Working Village (2010); Mow Cop: Living on the Hill (2011)

  • Up, Up and Away

    Pioneer balloonist Charles Green was quite a celebrity when he arrived in the Potteries in early October 1826. Five years earlier, Green had become famous almost overnight when he made a special ascent into the air in his coal gas filled balloon at George IV’s coronation. Since then he had become a professional balloonist, touring the country giving displays and allowing a lucky few to take a ride up with him. Now that thrill was open to the people in North Staffordshire and to one lucky passenger would fall the chance to make local history by joining Green in the first ever flight over the district.

    The first ascent was to take place from Shelton late in the afternoon of Tuesday, 3 October 1826. ‘A vast concourse of persons’ had assembled according to a reporter for the Staffordshire Advertiser. A carnival atmosphere prevailed, a band had been arranged to keep the onlookers entertained and enclosures were set up for paying guests. The most exclusive of these for ‘the most respectable inhabitants’, was rather thinly populated at first, but started to fill up after 3 p.m., allaying fears that Green would not be fully compensated for his visit to the area. Another cheaper enclosure was also pretty well filled. Most of the locals, though, opted for a free view, an immense number of whom were camped out in surrounding fields, streets and yards, perched on roofs or leaning out of windows.

    Charles Green in later life

    The weather was cloudy but favourable despite a brief shower which dampened those waiting for the launch. Half an hour or so before the main event a small pilot balloon was released to check on the wind direction, Green then got to work preparing the large crimson and gold striped main balloon for its trip over the Potteries. There was at this point some anxiety as to who, if anyone, would accompany Green on his historic flight. Some days earlier a suitable companion had been selected, but who this was is a mystery as the man backed out shortly before the launch and it seemed very likely that Green may have to go up alone. Indeed, the celebrated balloonist had clambered into the basket or ‘car’ as it was then called and was making his final adjustments prior to lift off, when the band suddenly struck up the popular Irish melody ‘Fly not yet’ to get his attention. A last-minute replacement had been found, the Reverend Benjamin Vale, perpetual curate of Stoke-upon-Trent, had volunteered to go. A Londoner by birth, Vale was an abrasive character with a very chequered history, which would not improve during his long career in the Potteries, but whatever his other faults he did not lack for courage and after briefly justifying his decision with his anxious friends, to the applause of the onlookers, he eagerly stepped forward to join Mr Green for this first historic trip.

    With the clergyman aboard, the balloon was allowed to rise into the air to a considerable height above the gathered crowd, ropes still holding it secure while it did so. Here, Mr Green released some ballast and dropped a parachute over the side attached to a basket that carried a cat, which floated safely back down to earth. After a short while suspended thus probably to give the crowd a good view of the ‘buoyant and splendid machine’, it was drawn back down to earth, two flags were handed over which were fixed at either end of the car, the ropes were released and with the band playing and crowd applauding the balloon rose gracefully into the air. To those on the ground the balloon remained in sight for about twenty minutes before vanishing into a cloud for ten minutes, then reappearing briefly in the distance as a dark-coloured ball. The rest of the journey was instead charted by Reverend Vale who subsequently wrote an account of the historic flight, which was printed in the Staffordshire Advertiser several days later.

    Reverend Vale described how after being released, their balloon was blown off first to the north and east and that he continued to answer the cries from the ground for as long as he could. Once they were out of earshot, though, he instead occupied his time watching Green work the balloon, or he looked over the side. It is perhaps a measure of his crusty character that rather than expressing delight at the experience and what he saw, he instead began musing on why anyone would strive to possess what looked like so many mud heaps below them. He tried to spot the church that he hoped to obtain the curacy to, but it had already dwindled into the distance and he could see little save a sprawling mud-heap where Hanley stood and another where Lane End lay.

    A mile up, after entering a thick yellow cloud that to Vale’s mind had a curious soapy feel to it, Charles Green opened the bottom of the balloon to give the gas inside room to expand and as Vale was interested in helping he allowed him to operate the valve when needed. Meanwhile, the balloon sailed over Blythe Bridge where a fresh current of air took hold and they moved towards Cellarhead, passing over Werrington windmill where they heard voices shouting up to them, but they were up too high to make out any figures on the ground.

    Charles Green’s balloon

    Whilst over Consul Woods they heard the sound of several guns being fired and got a good view of the country they were now passing over. The balloon was descending a little too rapidly for Mr Green’s liking, so ballast was dropped to slow the descent. Vale peered down once more, trying to make sense of the landscape below. Straight lines he realised were roads, while an odd mushroom was a haystack and what looked like a solitary bush was in fact a small wood. There were more cries from below and a curious humming noise could also be heard as a rain shower lashed the balloon above them. They crossed the Churnet and the canal near to Belmont House, spotting the reflection of the balloon in the water.

    Another wood loomed and more ballast fell and the balloon rose up into a fresh contrary zephyr that sent it south between Ipstones and Kingsley. Here the two aeronauts heard a voice crying “Come down, come down.” Far below, a woman watching the balloon had called up and thought she heard the men calling back, “Yes, yes, mistress.” and she brought out some brandy ready to greet them and celebrate, but to her disappointment, the balloon passed on by.

    After forty minutes in the air they were two miles up and getting cold and Mr Green decided to tie off the end of the balloon before attempting a landing. To achieve this he boldly stood up on the edge of the car, but even at full stretch he could not reach the fabric until Reverend Vale pulling down on a rope with all his might, dragged it to within Green’s grasp. As Green tied it off they distinctly heard the sound of a horn being blown followed by the clatter of carriage wheels, which indicated that a coach was rattling its way over the hills below them.

    Mr Green was now on the lookout for a safe landing spot, which became more urgent as bad weather closed in. However, nothing but fields and dry stone walls appeared before them and as they slung the grapple over the side, the two men steeled themselves for the worst that might happen. Spotting a couple of men below they yelled for assistance, but flew overhead much too quickly and it was not until their anchor had snagged and demolished parts of two walls that more locals rushed over and grabbed hold of the balloon and they finally came safely to a stop in the middle of a field. Vale estimated that they had been in the air for about an hour and had travelled over at least 25 miles.

    A couple of days later, after an early attempt had to be aborted due to high winds that made flying much too risky, Mr Green took a similar balloon trip over Newcastle, accompanied this time by a member of the Wedgwood family.

    Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser 7 October 1826, p.4; J. H. Y. Briggs, ‘A Staffordshire Clergyman: The Reverend Dr Benjamin Vale, L.L.D. (1787-1863)’ in Staffordshire Studies (Keele, 1987) pp. 141-153.

  • Am I Not a Man and a Brother?

    By the late 1700s, slavery, most notably the trade in African slaves, was being increasingly seen by many in Britain as a great moral evil. Abolitionist pamphlets and literature distributed in taverns, coffee houses, assembly rooms, reading societies and private houses up and down the country, brought home to the people of Britain the atrocities committed by the Atlantic slave trade, and attacked the entrenched attitudes and vicious practices of slave owners, and the greed of the other moneyed interests that thrived on this inhuman traffic.

    The anti-slavery movement had originated with non-conformist groups in Europe and America in the late 1600s. Quakers and other dissenters objected to slavery on both moral and religious grounds, but because of their unorthodox beliefs they were regarded as social outsiders and barred from public office, and as a result their views were largely ignored save by their fellow dissenters. The movement had grown slowly in Britain during the 18th century, but it finally found a voice and a leader in 1786, when Thomas Clarkson published  An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. This proved to be a rallying cry for the movement, bringing Clarkson into contact with other like-minded men and the next year he and eleven others formed the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This Committee would become a Society as it grew and would coordinate the Parliamentary campaign led by MP William Wilberforce that resulted in the end of the international trade in African slaves. That eventual success was still a couple of decades away, but the Committee made a good start, not only by being led by men of intelligence and zeal, but also by utilising what could be considered an early example of product branding, namely an easy-to-recognise logo, mass-produced by leading Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood.

    Josiah Wedgwood like many abolitionists was a non-conformist, being brought up as a Unitarian. He was not an immediate recruit to the cause, his early life being devoted to setting himself up as a potter and businessman. However, he was always very keenly interested in the social movements of his time and their consequences for society at large. This found its way into his paternal attitude towards his workers, whom he housed in the new model estate of Etruria that he built around his factory, and can be seen in the interest he took in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. His involvement in the anti-slavery movement, though, seems to have come about through the influence of his business partner Thomas Bentley. Bentley had worked as a merchant in Liverpool, a circumstance that might normally have made him a supporter of slavery, but he was firmly opposed to the trade and unlike the other merchants refused to go and meet the slave ships when they came into port. Doubtless Bentley’s feelings on the matter influenced Wedgwood in this, just as his knowledge of arts and science had done earlier in their friendship. Certainly, following Bentley’s death in 1780, Wedgwood subscribed to all the tracts and pamphlets concerning the abolition of the slave trade, and used his influence to do all that he could to help the cause.

    Josiah Wedgwood

    Wedgwood became friends with Thomas Clarkson and in 1787 he joined the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, shortly after it was set up. As an experienced businessman  Wedgwood would prove to be a valuable asset in the Committee’s arsenal. He understood the value of publicity – he after all, was the man who had pioneered the idea of the money back guarantee and the benefits of the ‘By Appointment’ status of Royal patronage – and he now came to the Committee with a brilliant idea to help promote their cause. Better still, he had the means to bring his plan to fruition and was willing to pay for it out of his own pocket.

    Wedgwood proposed producing a classically inspired oval cameo based on the seal of the Committee. This showed a kneeling African slave in chains, imploring mercy or pity, with the motto ‘Am I Not a Man and a Brother?’ The idea appealed to the Committee and Wedgwood immediately got one of his best craftsmen, William Hackwood, to first model and then prepare for production what became known as the slave medallion. Hackwood used Wedgwood’s black jasper to represent the supplicant slave, set against a white or cream background in the same ceramic body, with the motto moulded in relief above and partly around the figure. Then, once the working moulds had been made, the medallion went into production. Thousands were made and Wedgwood immediately began sending them out – again out of his own pocket – to interested parties. Thomas Clarkson, writing years later, remembered receiving his first batch and recalled the instant and telling popularity the slave medallion enjoyed.

    ‘Mr Wedgwood made a liberal donation of these, when finished, among his friends. I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself. They, to whom they were sent, did not lay them up in their cabinets, but gave them away likewise. They were soon, like The Negro’s Complaint, in different parts of the kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.’

    Most of the medallions were distributed via the Committee, but Wedgwood sent out many more himself, most notably in 1788 when he sent a package of the cameos across the Atlantic to Benjamin Franklin, an old acquaintance from the Lunar Society and at that time the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Wedgwood wrote ‘It gives me great pleasure to be embarked on this occasion in the same great and good cause with you and I ardently hope for the final completion of our wishes.’ Franklin replied, ‘I am persuaded [the medallion] may have an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet in procuring favour to those oppressed people.’ Sadly for both, neither Franklin nor Wedgwood would live long enough to see those wishes fulfilled.

    Wedgwood continued to actively support the anti-slavery movement right up to his death in early 1795. He bought shares in a company set up to form a colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone; befriended and advised William Wilberforce who would lead the parliamentary fight against slavery; and he paid for the printing and distribution of an anti-slavery pamphlet that the Committee produced. Offering to pay the cost for the production of a woodcut block, he advised them to head their pamphlet not with the advertisement they had originally planned, but with the woodcut, a reproduction of the same image of the kneeling slave that had inspired his own ceramic contribution to the cause.

    Reference: Thomas Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. II (1807).

    Website: Wedgwood Museum

  • Old News from the Potteries

    Regular newspaper coverage of events in the Potteries only really started at the end of the 18th century with the advent in 1795 of the Staffordshire Advertiser paper, though as this was published in Stafford, it’s coverage of the goings on in the north of the county was limited to the most noteworthy events. Another half century would pass before more local newspapers were being produced in Hanley, Stoke and Burslem. However, histories, travellers’ journals and some other national or regional papers occasionally carried tales from the Potteries from this early period, giving us fleeting glimpses into life in the area. These range from descriptions of the growing pottery industry and the construction of the canals, to bizarre deaths, odd weather and local curios.

    See a Fine Lady Upon a White Horse

    Between 1697 and 1702, partly from a wish to improve her health and from an equally strong desire to see more of her native land, Lady Celia Fiennes (whom some claim was the fine lady at Banbury Cross from the children’s nursery rhyme) undertook a series of journeys around England. In the summer of 1698, her peregrinations brought her into North Staffordshire. Here, after admiring the as yet unsullied landscape, she was keen to visit the Elers Brothers’ factory at Bradwell, but as she notes in her diary she was unsuccessful; the potters had temporarily run out of clay and were not working.

    ‘..and then to Trentum, and passed by a great house of Mr Leveson Gore, and went on the side of a high hill below which the River Trent ran and turn’d its silver stream forward and backward into s’s which Looked very pleasant Circling about ye fine meadows in their flourishing tyme bedecked with hay almost Ripe and flowers. 6 mile more to NewCastle under Line.’

    After ruminating briefly on the ‘coals to Newcastle’ adage, she continued. 

    ‘… I went to this NewCastle in Staffordshire to see the makeing of ye fine tea potts. Cups and saucers of ye fine red Earth in imitation and as Curious as yt wch Comes from China, but was defeated in my design, they. Comeing to an End of their Clay they made use of for yt sort of ware, and therefore was remov’d to some other place where they were not settled at their work so Could not see it;’

    (Reference: Celia Fiennes, Through England On a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, pp.146-147.)

    A Swedish Spy in the Valley of Crockery

    A visitor to the mid-18th century Potteries was Reinhold Rücker Angerstein, an industrial spy in the employ of the Swedish government, who was tasked with gathering information on new or emerging technology. Between 1753 and 1755, he journeyed through England and Wales and produced a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of the various industries and their practices. He appears to have visited the Staffordshire Potteries, which he labels rather colourfully as a ‘Valley of Crockery’, in about 1755. Here, after examining the manufacture of salt-glazed wares, describing the kilns in Hanley (including illustrations), the raw materials used, the prices of ware and various mechanisms employed in producing pottery (with still more pictures), he went on to add a few descriptions of the area that make for interesting reading.

    He notes that in Hanley there were 430 makers of white ware and other types of pottery, adding ‘The kilns are everywhere in this district.’ and to prove his point he includes an illustration of the skyline of the town. There were also large numbers of potteries in Stoke and other places, ‘where mostly the same kind of ware as that enumerated is made and also some simpler crockery.’ He then adds a picturesque and slightly comical tale. ‘When as it sometimes happens, many kilns are glazing with salt at the same time, there is such a thick smoke of salt in these towns, that people in the streets cannot see 6 feet ahead, which, however does not cause any difficulties. On the contrary, the smoke is considered so healthy that people who are ill come here from far away to breathe it.’

    Of the pottery itself, he writes, ‘The crockery produced is mainly sent to London or other sea ports, from which much of it is exported to America and many other foreign countries.’

    (Reference: R. R. Angerstein’s Illustrated Travel Diary 1753-1755, pp. 340-342)

    John Wesley preaching to a crowd

    Pelted in the Potteries 

    On 8 March 1760, the Reverend John Wesley, the founding father of Methodism, visited Burslem for the first of many visits to the region. He described Burslem as ‘a scattered town, on the top of a hill, inhabited almost entirely by potters’, a large crowd of whom had gathered to hear him at five in the evening. He noted that great attention sat on every face, but also great ignorance which he hoped he could banish. 

    The next day Wesley preached a second sermon in Burslem to twice the number of the day before. ‘Some of these seemed quite innocent of thought. Five or six were laughing and talking till I had near done; and one of them threw a clod of earth, which struck me on the side of the head. But it neither disturbed me nor the congregation.’  –

    (Reference: John Wesley, Journal, 8-9 March 1760)

    The First Cut

    After receiving the royal assent two months earlier for construction of a canal connecting the rivers Trent and Mersey, on the morning of 26 July 1766, at a site just below Brownhills, pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood cut the first sod of what would in time become the Trent and Mersey canal. James Brindley, the engineer who would oversee the canal’s construction, and numerous other dignitaries were present, many of whom would also cut a piece of turf, or wheel away a barrow of earth to mark the occasion. In the afternoon a sheep was roasted in Burslem market place for the benefit of the poorer potters in the town. A bonfire was also lit in front of Wedgwood’s house and many other events took place around the Potteries by way of celebration. 

    (Reference: Jean Lindsay, The Trent and Mersey Canal, pp.31-32)

    News from the North

    Extract of a Letter from Burslem, 14  August 1766,

    ‘As you often give me London News, I will give you some from this Country, which has of late made a Figure. This Neighbourhood has for many Years made Pots for Europe, and will still do so, though the King of Prussia has lately clapt 28 per Cent, upon them. Our Roads were so bad that nobody came to view the Place where the Flint Ware is made, but now we have Turnpikes upon Turnpikes, and our Potteries are as well worth seeing as the Stockport Silk-Mills, or the Bridgewater Navigation, which we intend to beat hollow by Lord Gower’s, now begun in our Meadows, and advancing apace towards Harecastle, on the other Side of which Multitudes of Men are at work, and before Christmas we shall have cut through the Hill, and made another Wonder of the World. There are already 100 Men employed on our Side, and 100 more will be added as soon as Wheelbarrows can be procured for them. Saturday last we had brave Sport at Earl Gower’s, where 100,000 Spectators were present at the Prison-Bars played in Trentham Park. Among them were the Dukes of Bedford and Bridgewater. The Prizes were Ten Carline Hats, with gold Loops and Buttons, given by the Earl. The Cheshire Men were active Fellows, but unluckily their Lot was to wear Plod Drawers, to distinguish them from their Antagonists, which made the Crowd oppose their getting the Honour of the Day. During this Game, my Friend Bucknall loft his Boy, about Eight Years of Age, who was suffocated by going aslant down a Sort of a Cave into an old Coalpit, the top of which was fallen in. The Man that ventured to fetch him out, found a Number of Birds, supposed to have dropped down there by the sulphurous Stench issuing from the Pit. We have much Hay, and Cheese is plenty, and Corn without Barn-room, nor do we want Money. 

    P. S. I have just seen a Hen, which laid Twelve Eggs only, from which she has brought up Twelve Cock Chickens, which is looked upon as somewhat remarkable.’  –

    (Reference: Derby Mercury, Friday 29 August 1766, p.2)

    In Praise of Mr Brindley

    Extract of a Letter from Burslem in Staffordshire. dated September 5.

    “Though our Stone Ware has been universally used, yet till our Turnpikes were made few People ever saw our Manufactories. But now they are gazed at as a Novelty. The Ladies go to Warburton’s to buy the Queen’s Sets of Cream-coloured Ware; and the Gentle-men come to view our Eighth Wonder of the World, the subterraneous Navigation, which is cutting by the great Mr. Brindley, who handles Rocks as easily as you would Plumb-Pyes, and makes the four Elements subservient to his Will. He is as plain a looking Man as one of the Boors of the Peak, or one of his own Carters; but when he speaks all Ears listen, and every Mind is filled with Wonder at the Things he pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a Mile through Bogs, which he binds up, embanking them with the Stones which he gets out of the other Parts of the Navigation, besides about a Quarter of a Mile into the Hill Yeldon; on the Side of which he has a Pump, which is worked by Water, and a Stove, the Fire of which sucks through a Pipe the Damps that would annoy the Men, who are cutting towards the Centre of the Hill. The Clay he cuts out, serves for Brick to arch the subterraneous Part, which we heartily wish to see finished to Wilden Ferry, when we shall be able to send Coals and Pots to London, and to different Parts of the Globe.— Another Mile is cut on the Cheshire Side of the Hill, and the Men intend to meet in the Middle by Christmas, when they are to have an Ox roasted whole, and an Hogshead of Ale.”

    (Reference: Derby Mercury – Friday 18 September 1767, p.2)

    Tunnel Vision

    On 1 July 1772, an anonymous correspondent writing from Burslem related what he had seen the day before when he and some companions paid a visit to the first incarnation of the Harecastle Tunnel, situated between Tunstall and Kidsgrove and then under construction as part of James Brindley’s Trent and Mersey Canal. 

    ‘Yesterday we took a walk to the famous subterraneous canal at Harecastle, which is now opened for a mile on one side of the hill, and more than half a mile on the other, of course the whole must be compleated in a short time. As it is not yet filled with water, we entered into it, one of the party repeating the beautiful lines in Virgil, which describe the descent of Æneas into the Elysian fields. On a sudden our ears were struck with the most melodious sounds. – Lest you should imagine us to have heard the genius or goddess of the mountain singing the praises of engineer Brindly, it may be necessary to inform you, that one of the company had advanced some hundred paces before, and there favoured us with some excellent airs on the German flute. You can scarcely conceive the charming effect of this music echoed and re-echoed along a cavern near two thousand yards in length.’ 

    (Reference: Leeds Intelligencer, Tuesday 14 July 1772, p.3)

    A Fungi to Be With

    No age is free of stories of novelty fruit, veg or mushrooms:

    ‘A few days ago, a mushroom was got at Stoke-upon-Trent, in the county of Stafford, whose diameter was 5 inches, and 30 inches in circumference, it weighed 16 ounces. The above is very authentic.’ 

    (Reference: Leeds Intelligencer, 5 September 1775, p.3)

    All in a Spin

    In 1781, there was the story of a curious weather phenomenon, a whirlwind or perhaps a mini tornado:

    ‘The following extraordinary phenomenon was lately observed here; at the latter end of last month, a field of hay belonging to Mr. J. Clark, near Burslem, was carried off by a whirlwind; the day when it happened was exceedingly calm, scarce a breath of air to be perceived. The people who were at work in the field observed, that in one part the hay began to be agitated in a small circle, at every wheel it increased in size and velocity, continually sucking more hay into its vortex; after a considerable time it began to ascend, taking along with it a silk handkerchief which hung rather loosely about the neck of one of the men who was at work; it continued ascending till entirely out sight, and in about an hour it began to descend, and continued to so for an hour’s space, alighting at, or within a few hundred yards of the place from whence it had been carried up, so that the owner lost but a very trifling quantity of his hay.’ 

    (Reference: Hereford Journal, 23 August 1781, p.2)

    A Tragic Accident

    The following melancholy tale from the Potteries is related in a letter dated August 14 1785. 

    ‘As Ellen Hulme, a poor woman of Lane End, was returning to her habitation late last night, with her infant, six weeks old, in her arm, she unfortunately stepped into a coal-pit, which shamefully lay open close to the road, and even with the track which led to the poor creature’s house. Her husband, whom she had been to fetch from an alehouse, immediately alarmed the neighbourhood, when her distressing cries were very distinctly heard from the bottom of the dreary pit every effort was attempted by the hardy colliers to fetch her up, but the damp prevailing very much, obliged them to use means to extract it, after which was found the mother with her infant upon her arms, both dead.’ 

    (Reference: Sussex Advertiser, 22 August 1785, p.3) 

    A Hard Winter

    During the harsh winter of 1794-1795, the better off inhabitants of Hanley and Shelton formed a committee which started a subscription list for the temporary relief the poor who were suffering great hardship during the cold weather. By February 1795 the committee had collected an impressive £150, enough to enable them  to supply nearly 500 local families with meat, potatoes, and cheese. The Wedgwood family gave a liberal amount and through them a Mrs Crewe kindly added a welcome donation of a quantity of flannel clothing. The Marquis of Stafford aided the relief fund by ordering 100 tons of coal to be at the distribution of the committee. 

    A month later, in an issue of the Staffordshire Advertiser that noted that thermometers in Macclesfield had measured temperatures as low as -21° F (-29.4° C), the fearsome nature of the winter was highlighted dramatically by one small but rather macabre snippet of news: ‘Through the inclemency of the night of Saturday last [i.e.,14 March] a poor man perished betwixt Hanley and Bucknall. He unfortunately lost himself in attempting to cross the fields, and was found on Sunday standing upright in a snow drift, with his hand only above the surface.’ 

    (Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser, 7 February 1795, p.3; 21 March 1795, p.3.)

    Dashed to Pieces

    ‘A melancholy accident happened on Wednesday last at a coal-pit near Lane Delph, in the Pottery. A poor woman employed in drawing up the coal, was by some accident unfortunately thrown into the pit, and was literally dashed to pieces.’

    (Reference: Derby Mercury, 30 June 1796, p.4).

    Wild Fire

    In late March or early April 1799, a dreadful accident happened in a pit at Lane End, the property of John Smith, Esq. Four men were blown up, and two them terribly burnt by what the colliers of the time described as ‘the wild fire’. The explosion was loud, and the concussion so great that nearby houses shook violently. Two of the men were not expected to recover, while the other two were thrown to a considerable distance, and left badly bruised. The reporter noted that their hats were blown to the distance of 70 yards from the mouth of the pit. 

    (Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 6 April 1799, p.4)

  • Dickens, the Dodo and the Dinner Plate

    On 1 April 1852, the writer Charles Dickens wrote a letter to his wife Kate informing her ‘We think of going on tonight from Birmingham to Stoke upon Trent.’  Despite worries about the trains, it seems that he and a travelling companion arrived in Stoke the next morning. Here after gazing with some fascination at the town before him, the famous author (who at the time was also writing up weekly instalments of his longest book, Bleak House) spent a few hours at the Spode factory which was at that period owned by W. T. Copeland.

    Dickens started his tour of Copeland’s works by watching a thrower and his attendant swiftly and skilfully fashion a breakfast set for his amusement, watched jiggerers and pressers making bowls and basins and saw Parian statuettes being produced in moulds. He then explored the factory kilns, seeing the saggars being stacked prior to firing and mused on the constant cycle of heating and cooling that accompanied the manufacture of pottery. This was followed by visits to see transferers and decorators at work, producing willow pattern wares or fancier stuff, before moving on to the dipping shop for glazing and then to the placers carefully loading the ware into the appropriate saggers prior to them being loaded into the kilns he had seen earlier. Dickens seems to have enjoyed his tour and it was doubtless a thrill for the workers at the Copeland works to meet, albeit briefly, one of the biggest celebrities of the Victorian age and show him their own impressive skills. Armed with all he had seen and imbibing a good working knowledge of the history and process of pottery making, Charles Dickens moved on the next day to Stafford.

    Compared to the grime and industry of the Potteries that evidently spoke to his imagination, Dickens was bored with Stafford and rather rude about the place, ‘it is as dull and dead a town as any one could desire not to see’ he wrote tartly. He lodged at the Swan Inn, which he disparagingly nicknamed ‘the Dodo’ and where he apparently seemed doomed to spend a very dull evening indeed. According to the tale he told, though, he chanced to look at the bottom of a plate and saw the name ‘COPELAND’, which set him to musing on the previous day’s events. Employing a literary conceit, he then let the plate ‘remind’ him of all he had seen at Copeland’s pot bank, telling the story outlined above as a journey through its creation. The plate’s ‘recollections’ got Dickens through the evening, so he claimed, though one might suppose that he was actually quite busy putting his recollections down on paper. His clever bit of writing, ‘A Plated Article’, was published in the magazine Household Words, on 24 April 1852.