The record-union., 1891-03-01
Irregular Correspondence of the RECORD.
UNION. Copyright, 1S91.l
HENLEY Eng.), Feb. u, 1891.

HENLEY (Eng.l, Feb. u, 1891.
Staffordshire, the principal seat of the
English potteries, is an inland county,
lying near the center of England. Long
and narrow, something like a rhombus
in form, it separates the four midland
counties of Derby, Leicester, Warwick
and Worcestershire, on the east, from
the two important western shires OF
Cheshire and Shropshire, and extends
north and south one-ffth the length of
the kingdom.
1t has no great place in history. The
old monks were not attracted to it as a
region in which to build splendid abbeys.
Antiquarians have not found much in it
to wrangle over. 1t has inspired little in
romance and song. No one ever came to
it a second time for it's beauty. Forbid
ding and unfertile hills merge into fiat
and monotonous meadows in the south.
Along its middle reaches are the coal
otis and the near. forges with the dismal
;hunderings. IN the north, even less
:omcly than the south, begin the
bleak, bare elevations of Bunster
and Viewer, the true English moor
lands which stretch, with varying
hight and dreariness, north through
the entire Kingdom, spreading into
lllC VIII d.lQ ttCSOiftC IlOuIbdlD-
moors of Yorkshire, Durham and North
cumberland, until lost among the mists of
Scotland which sway and sweep above
the mourniul YarroW and murmurous
Tweed. 1t has few commonplace
streams; one little lake, measured by
yards, and one river, the Trent, the third
III size and extent in England, though
unnavigabie, which springs from little
Newpool, near Biddulph, at the edge Of
Cheshire, flows southeasterly through tho
entire shire, but with never glen to in
vito legend, nor cascade to make or
inspire song.
Two Roman roads or military ways,
Waiting street and Ickneld street, inter
seeing, cross the shire from east to west.
If you viii tramp to the Longwynd Hills,
over iii Shropshire, you can trace the
tracllway worn white and bare to the
eternal stone, over which the Romans
brought supplies Of pottery, 500 Years
ago, from the Severn Valley and Stafford
shire, to their military stations south and
southwest ofancient Uriconium. AT least
the curious old books will bravely tell
You that is how the huge, bleached fur
row you will see was dug through the
gOrse and h&re-bellS of the wild and un-
lovely waste. Better ways than these
now traverse the shire. Canals gleam
along valleys, glisten above viaducts and
penetrate mountains, making Seaports Of
every busy town, and with the railways
they have cut old Stafford into more Curl
Gus patterns than grandam's "brolien-
dish" patchwork quilt.
The shire was once all forest land. That
was not long ago. But they assert i'll
Staffordshire that all these old forests
We're felled and the whole shire formerly
made bare simply to fire the oid-fash-
ioned ovens. out OF these came the tygs,
posset-cGps and pots of the Roman time,
when huge, strong mugs We're good
enough for drinking purposes, the Delft,
pitchers and porringers of the Norman
period, down TO even those marvellous
achievements Of the Wedgwood time,
'Uhen the priceless Barbereni, or Port
land, vase was not only duplicated but
eXcelled in fifty WondrouS copies. Then
came the era OF coal and clay in Stafford
shire, or more properly speaking of
WedgWood, clay and coal. Somebody has
computed that you could walk on crock
cry over all the area of Staffordshire,
which comprises about 100000 acres OF
land, II all that ever went out Of the shire
could be brought back and set down piece
by piece within it. But without one pri-
meYal tree, and with room for but few
others save in parks and demesnes of the
nobility and potter gentry, Staflordshire
is still forest; in the south and center u
mighty forest Of chimneyS, where coal
and iron endiessly burn and fuse and
poliute the land from flaming caverns at
the feet OF leYiathan tree-trlnks of brick,
from whose tops oyeTSpreading arms OF
smoke wheel and turn with the wind, and
the blessed sunlight rarely filters through
their thick and sulphurous pail-lil<e
foliage. IN the north, still forest of
chimneys, in the pottery district so dense,
here with the great ovens. at their feet
looking like monstrous tenpins of giants,
that, standing in the tower of the old
church at Henley, the metropolis of the
potterleS, through the stacks of IurnStall,
Burslem, Milton, Bucknall, Longton,
Stoke-on-Trent, Henford, Lane End,
Penkhu1, Newcastle and Etruria, you
cannot clearly define in half dozen tiny
spots the dreary horizon line.
This hideous transformation, out of
which such vast utiitarian stores and
countless articles of beauty have come,
has been the work OF little more than a
century. Pottery work of 300 years ago
can be definitely traced to Burslem. The
town was then known rs butter pottery
that is, pottery where pots for keeping
butter were made. Then in 1890, along
came two ingenious Hollanders named
Eler. They introduced a new form of
glaze secured by superficial vitrification
of the clay through the superheated fumes
of common salt. The Elers also brought
10 Stafford the unglazed red China meth
cd from the east. This was all very won
derful for that time, but by and by white
ware made its appearance through an
accidental discovery. On q journey to
London, one of the BurSlem potterS had
powdered flint recommended by an inn-
hostler for his horses disorded eyes. To
more easily pulveriZe it. q flint stone was
thrown into the fire. The potter saw that
the flame changed it to a pure white.
Flint stones We're gathered in the south
OF England, sent TO StafIordshire i'll large
quantities, mixed with tobacco-pipe clay,
and pure white stoneware was produced.
The crushing and grinding mills for pull
r1liriso, :,
water, and serving it in paste of any de-
sired consistency, were only q matter of
time Then. in 1863, Josiah Wedgwood per-
f3cted earthenware for the table-whose
first delicate cream color is so attractive
to ocollectors-whchs so pleased the Queen,
that she gave TO it her name and patron
age. The word Queen was stamped in all
these dishes. Hence "Queensware' of
That and the present time
Following this came the most brilliant
career ever enjoyed by manufacturer.
he story reads like an Arabian Nights
tue. This one man Wedgwood, not a
learned man from the collegiate standard,
cripple through a malignant disease in
youth, and not one who had Inherited
prestlge or substance, seemed to possess
the auuaclous originality of all real
genius, Inconceivable patience, and,
above all, an answering loyalty to true
art. With these qualities he so welded
art to refined progress and utility that
there was recovered from the whole
sweepof the known past everything of
true beauty that had been revealed to the
potter. With marvellous rapidity of con-
ception, development, application and
aiaptability, he not only recovered and
recreated what seemed irreplaceable. hut
established TO endure new standards in
the noblest ideals possible to ceramic art
In a word, fifty centuries of art effort
were by his brain and hand concentrated
II