south entrance, and covering a double flight of twelve steps. The rise of the surface northerly leaves the doorways there level with the ground. The situation of the building is admirably chosen for ornament, no less than utility, and it forms a striking object in approaching the town from Waterloo-Road. The ground-plan of it is marked by broad black lines in the plate given before.* The dimensions are 130 feet (N. to S.,) by 108 feet, (E. to W.,) besides areas along the south and west sides, raised to the level of the ground-floor; two rows of spacious vaults extend under the building, along the south, and the basement of that front is intended for small shops, with arched doors and windows. The entire outlay in the building was £3600, but reduced £400 by the value of old materials; and the site having cost £4000, the whole expence was £7200; which was borrowed, in various loans, by the Trustees on mortgage of the tolls, and guaranteed by their personal security.

The income of the Market had gradually increased from its trifling origin, until it realized, in 1812, about £150, and, in 1824, (the year previously to obtaining the Act,) the receipts were £387. In 1826 the tolls, as then fixed, were let by auction for £552 10s., and in 1834 for £850. In 1838, after the covered Market had been two years in operation, and the produce of the tolls had been so far tested by actual collection, they were let for the ensuing year at the very considerable rent of £1280.

The interior of the covered Market is divided into 124 stations. The highest toll paid for any station daily is 3s. Id., the lowest 1s. 6d., exclusive of gas-lights; the Market is holden on Mondays and Saturdays, Monday being the principal day. Six annual fairs have been appointed by the Trustees, to be holden on the Saturdays preceding Shrovetide, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and next after Midsummer-day, the 11th September, and Christmas-day, but have been hitherto little regarded.

CHAPTER XII

Burslem.—(Concluded.)

MANUFACTURING ESTABLISHMENTS.-ENOCH WOOD AND SONS.-MEMOIR OF MR. WOOD, SEN. HIS MUSEUM OF FICTILE RAREITIES BUST OF JOHN WESLEY, AND ANECDOTE THEREON.-MR. WOOD'S PATENT FOR RAISING WATER.- SAMUEL ALCOCK AND CO.'s EXTENSIVE CHINA WORKS.MACHIN AND POTTS. THEIR IMPROVEMENTS, AND PATENT CHEMICAL AND COLOUR WORKS.-PRINCIPAL DWELLING-HOUSES.-BANKING ESTABLISHMENTS.PROFESSIONAL PERSONS.-GASWORKS.-SUPPLY OF WATER.-HIGHWAYS. -BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS.-BURSLEM WAKE.-CHARITABLE GIFTS. -WORKHOUSE.-PAROCHIAL EXPENDITURE.-INNS AND BEER HOUSES.

INVENTIONS.

OTHER

-REGISTERED VOTERS.

MANUFACTURERS.

In the present Chapter we propose to notice the existing manufacturing establishments, dwelling-houses, and other matters connected with Burslem Proper, and to conclude its history.

The firm of ENOCH WOOD AND SONS take the lead as Earthenware manufacturers, and have occupied that position for many years; the head of this house, Enoch Wood, Esq., whose name we have had occasion to introduce on several previous occasions, commenced business, in 1783, on his own account, and, in 1790, was joined by James Caldwell, Esq., late of Linley-Wood; the business being from that time conducted under the firm of "Enoch Wood and Caldwell," until the year 1818, when Mr. Wood purchased Mr. Caldwell's property in the concern, and the present firm of Enoch Wood and Sons had its commencement. They now occupy the sites of four ancient pot-works, near together, on the two

sides of the old Pack-horse-Lane, (formerly a public thoroughfare from Burslem to Newcastle, but now stopped up,) and which are connected by means of a subterraneous passage, as well as by the arched gallery shewn in the first of the two plates introduced hereafter, which exhibits the east front of the large manufactory in FoUNTAIN-PLACE,* erected by Mr. Wood, in 1789. A windmill was, in the first place, employed here in raising water and preparing the clay, ready for the hands of the potters, and for grinding glaze and colours, but this work is now done by steam-power. Messrs. Wood and Sons also occupy another manufactory at a short distance in the town, late belonging to Mr. John Brettell.

Mr. Wood, being the oldest living manufacturer in the district, and having long occupied the most prominent station at Burslem, to the prosperity and improvement of which, during a long life, he has greatly contributed, we hope to be enabled to obtain an engraved portrait of him, to face the title-page of the present chapter, before the work is completed.

The various families of the name of WooD are about as numerous at the present time, in Burslem, as were those of WEDGWOOD some years since, and are all descended from Ralph and Elizabeth Wood, mentioned before as ancestors of the Brownhill's family,† of whom Mr. Enoch Wood, Sen. is the grandson, i. e. the youngest son of Aaron Wood, (a very ingenious modeller, and the principal artist in that line then in the district,) who was the second son of Ralph and Elizabeth Wood.

* The name of Fountain-Place was adopted from a Fountain, or Reservoir, for the use of the town, constructed by Mr. Wood, in or about the year 1798, which was supplied with water by means of the engine at his manufactory. Conduit-pipes were laid to a pillar or obelisk, which stood in front of the gate-way of the manufactory, (where a tall lamp pillar is now fixed,) and the public had the free use of this for a number of years afterwards. + Page 153.

MR. WOOD'S MUSEUM.

261

Mr. Enoch Wood married, (in December, 1780,) Miss Ann Bourne, of Burslem, who is also still living. The 50th anniversary of their wedding-day was celebrated with great rejoicings by their children and grandchildren, at a family jubilee in 1829. Three of Mr. Wood's son's-Enoch, Joseph, and Edward, are, (or were until about the time of our writing this account,) connected with him in the trade, and the first of them has an eldest son of the same name.

Mr. Wood, Sen., who is a great Virtuoso in whatever concerns the business of the potter, has an extensive and curious collection of early and later specimens of the fictile art, from the rude butter-pot of Charles II.'s time, to the highly-adorned vase of modern days. Of this collection we can give but a very concise account, and that of the earlier specimens only.

Those of the most ancient date are rude and unglazed, and prove the entire lack of skill and taste which prevailed until after the middle of the seventeenth century.

The next class consists of drinking-cups and other articles of a darkbrown hue, glazed with lead ore, or Smithrem, mottled with manganese; and these evidently preceded the use of salt glaze.

The third series consists of platters, cups, porringers, &c. of the native cane-colored clay, ornamented with orange and other slips, figured with rude devices of various kinds, done with a tool, and glazed with lead. This series comes down to the reign of William III. The fourth series shews that the introduction of salt glaze, and a better style of workmanship commenced in the same reign, and fortifies the tradition we have before referred to, that the salt glazing was first practised by the Messrs. ELERS, from Holland.* A pint jug, bearing a medallion of King William III. in relief, and flowered ornaments stamped in metal moulds; the body, an ash-colored marl, is the earliest specimen of the salt glaze, and of the Dutchmen's superior skill, but Mr. Wood is inclined to consider this and other corresponding pieces as being imported from Holland or Germany, although they bear the effigies of the English Sovereigns, William and Mary.

* See page 47.

A fifth assortment comprises a great variety of tea-pots, and other utensils of unglazed red-ware of coralline hue, resembling the Samian, turned in the lathe, and ornamented with pressed devices. These are the acknowledged productions of the Elers, at their works at Bradwell, and show a considerable advancement of Dutch over English art. They bring down the manufacture to the end of the seventeenth century, and shew that hitherto none but native clays were used.

The series which follows the above consists of a great variety of utensils, all glazed with salt, several of them having medallions of Queen Anne, principally formed of the yellow native clay, and many of them marbled with manganese, like the leaves of modern-bound books. They have a good deal of rude chasing about them, and some

degree of elegance.

The next collection shews an improvement in forms and lightness, and the introduction of slips of Devonshire, or Dorset clay, in ornamenting, or lining the wares. These articles are also glazed with salt.

The succeeding series exhibit the bodies of the wares, composed of a mixture of the native clays with flint; the glaze being of salt. These are the white stone-wares before spoken of.* Many of them are richly ornamented with pressed devices from metal moulds, which preceded the introduction of moulds made of plaster of Paris.

Mr. Wood has in his Museum many moulds of brass and iron, used by the earlier potters, and several of chiselled Alabaster, quite curiosities, as corroborating a relation before hinted at, that an English potter having gone over to France, sent word to his friends at Burslem, that the French China-makers used Alabaster moulds, whereupon a sculptor was employed to chisel out the crude stone into the shape desired, instead of burning, pulverising, and moulding it, as they afterwards discovered to be the more expeditious and proper method.†

It might be considered tedious were we to carry on the description of the articles contained in Mr. Wood's Museum to a further length, and we therefore here close our account of it. The collection was greatly reduced, in 1835, by a present of numerous specimens, (182 pieces,) forwarded by Mr. Wood to the King of Saxony, through Baron Gersdorff, his Majesty's Ambassador at the British Court. This present was handsomely acknowledged by the Directors of the Royal Museum at Dresden, through the same nobleman, who, in a letter to Mr. Wood, (dated