Stoke-on-Trent

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Stoke-on-Trent is a city in Staffordshire in the West Midlands region of England. It is also a unitary authority.

Stoke-on-Trent was the home of the pottery industry in the United Kingdom. It was a very important exporter in the late 18th, the 19th and up to about 1960. It is commonly known as The Potteries. The industry was killed off by cheap Chinese pottery after the Second World War, and by the even cheaper plastic homeware. 

Coal was its other employment. The furnaces of the kilns needed coal. Coal was also a commodity which was exported from the area.

The city is unusual in that it is made up of a cluster of six towns  Longton, Fenton, Stoke (Stoke-upon-Trent), Hanley, Burslem, and Tunstall.

Stoke-on-Trent is known for the Supermarine Spitfire, pottery, oatcakes, the spark plug, Sir Stanley Mathews, Robbie Williams, Slash, Arnold Bennett, Captain Smith and Stoke City F.C. (Stoke City is the second oldest professional football club: it was founded in 1863).

Other websites
 Stoke-on-Trent City Council
 BBC Stoke website
 The Potteries
 Local Information from The Sentinel newspaper
 Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service 
 Exploring the Potteries