Acknowledgments
For assistance with this article the author thanks Robert Adams, Margaret Beard, Chris Latimer, and all the staff of the Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service at Hanley Library, and Don Carpentier of the Eastfield Foundation, East Nassau, New York.
1. J. M., “The Pioneers Song,” dated Tunstall April 9, 1845, printed in The Potters’ Examiner and Workman’s Advocate 3, no. 21 (April 19, 1845): 168. “The Bastille” was a common name for the workhouse in Victorian England; the institution to which those unable to support themselves through old age, sickness, or unemployment were sent by their parish authorities to receive “indoor relief” from their poverty.
2. The weekly newspaper was founded in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, by the United Branches of Operative Potters and published from 1837 to 1847. It ceased publication briefly and then reappeared as The Potters’ Examiner and Emigrants’ Advocate (hereafter PE&WA).
3. “Petition to Parliament from the Staffordshire Potters, 1762,” quoted in Arnold R. Mountford, The Illustrated Guide to Staffordshire Salt-Glazed Stoneware (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1971), p. 11.
4. Frank Burchill and R. Ross, A History of the Potters’ Union (Stoke-on-Trent, Eng.: Ceramic & Allied Trades Union, 1977), p. 27.
5. Elizabeth Adams and D. Redstone, Bow Porcelain (London: Faber & Faber, 1981), pp. 80–81.
6. William Cookworthy to Richard Hingston, May 30, 1745, in Hugh Owen, Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol (Gloucester, Eng.: privately printed for the author by J. Bellows, 1873), p. 7.
7. Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley, May 20, 1767, to June 15, 1767, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, edited by Lady K. E. Farrer, 3 vols. (Manchester, Eng.: Morten, Ltd., 1903), 1:138–56. See also Bradford L. Rauschenburg, “‘A Clay as white as Lime of Which There is a Design formed by Some Gentlemen to Make China’: The American and English Search for Cherokee Clay in South Carolina 1745–1775,” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 17, no. 2 (November 1991): 67–79.
8. Josiah Wedgwood, An Address to the Workmen in the Pottery, on the Subject of Entering into the Service of Foreign Manufacturers, 1783, reprinted in full in Bradford L. Rauschenburg, “John Bartlam Who Established ‘new Pottworks in South Carolina’ and Became the First Successful Creamware Potter in America,” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 17, no. 2 (November 1991): appendix 1, 50–57.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley, June 23, 1775, Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, vol. 2, pp. 227–28.
13. The pottery industry had continued to expand in the early nineteenth century with exports to America alone rising from £59,665 in 1805 to £326,3393 by 1815. The postwar slump had seen exports fall by more than three-quarters to £76,552 in 1820, but within five years rose to £182,642. Neil Ewins, “Supplying the Present Wants of Our Yankee Cousins: Staffordshire Ceramics and the American Market 1771–1880,” Journal of Ceramic History 1 (Stoke-on-Trent, Eng.: City Museum and Art Gallery, 1997), 15: 7.
14. Designed to prevent workers combining together and forming unions.
15. Piecework was, and still is, the usual method of pay in the Staffordshire potteries. Workers do not receive a set weekly wage but are paid by how much ware they produce by the end of the week.
16. Burchill and Ross, A History of the Potters’ Union, pp. 9–11.
17. The Potters’ Joint Stock Emigration Society and Savings Fund was one of only a number of similar schemes, including the Temperance Emigration Society founded at Sheffield in 1842. It was unusual in being trade specific.
18. Wisconsin was decided on and the settlement of Pottersville established in 1845.
19. “Candour,” “A Few Thoughts on Machinery, Addressed to the United Branches of Operative Potters,” PE&WA 2, no. 24 (November 9, 1844): 186–87.
20. There were approximately two thousand union members in the district. Burchill and Ross, A History of the Potters’ Union, p. 84.
21. “Our Home in the West” was a term regularly used in the pages of The Examiner. Notably it is the heading of a play by “Quizicus” subtitled “A Dialogue between Old Tom Potts and his Brother Joe” in PE&WA 2, no. 9 (July 27, 1844): 67–69; and the title of a poem in ibid., nos. 23 and 24 (November 2 and 9, 1844).
22. Editorial article by “Mentor” (William Evans’ pseudonym) in PE&WA 2, no. 8 (July 20, 1844): 57–59.
23. Stacey’s Christian name is not given in The Examiner article, nor in the subsequent letters from his companions. Their departure was marked by a dinner given by the United Branches of Operative Potters to “Messrs. Howson, Garner and Bradshaw,” and notice that “Messrs. Cartwright, Stacey and Mountford” had also announced their emigration. PE&WA 2, no. 3 (June 15, 1844): 20.
24. Letter from Enoch Bradshaw of Hanley, dated June 9, 1844, in PE&WA 2, no. 3 (June 15, 1844): 19–20. On arriving in America, Bradshaw, Garner, and Cartwright made their way to East Liverpool, Ohio, where they quickly got employment. Bradshaw thrived there. In 1854 he was commissioned to conduct a mid-decade census of the city. In 1889 he started the East Liverpool Democrat, which was published until 1876, and he was still writing to the town council in 1884. William C. Gates, Jr., City of Hills and Kilns: Life and Work in East Liverpool, Ohio (East Liverpool, Ohio: East Liverpool Historical Society, 1984).
25. Approximately $25, a significant gift when a skilled man’s wage averaged $5 to $8 per week.
26. A letter from the Central Board of Ovenmen in PE&WA 2, no. 5 (June 29, 1844): 39 stated: “Your Central Committee have responded to your generally expressed wish, in rendering to our worthy friend and brother Enoch Bradshaw, some little pecuniary assistance, to enable him to exchange this land of persecution and mental thraldom, for one of liberty, where he may speak or write an honestly conceived opinion without fear of being proscribed or marked by his fellow men as a dangerous member of society. Your Committee feel assured that you will feel individually as they do an inward indescribable satisfaction . . . in having assisted a brother in the time of need—in contributing your mite towards frustrating the machinations of those who wished to throw him upon our funds; in fact to assist a fellow creature to earn a livelihood by honest industry in a foreign land which was denied to him in his fatherland . . . .
Your Committee would further state if others of their brethren are discharged for no visible conclusive cause, any further than being connected with our Union, as they believe was the case with brother Bradshaw, they shall again call upon you to unite your energies to assist us in sending [them] after him, in full assurance that such call will not be made in vain.”
27. “Chat,” “Dialogue Between Two Operative Potters on the Subject of Emigration,” PE&WA 1, no. 24 (May 11, 1844): 189–90.
28. “I have seen plenty of people here from Longport and Burslem [districts of Stoke-on-Trent], but the place I saw most at was at Nauvoo.” Letter from Leonard Brown of Paddock’s Prairie, near Alton, Illinois, dated March 11, 1844, in PE&WA 1, no. 24 (May 11, 1844): 191–92.
29. Letter from Walter and Sarah Croxton of Alton, Illinois, dated November 1, 1841, in PE&WA 1, no. 21 (April 21, 1844): 167.
30. In Stoke-on-Trent the annual hiring of potters and fixing of wages for the coming twelve months was fixed at Martinmas. It is interesting to see that, as Staffordshire men, the brothers clung to that time of year to take account of their business.
31. James Goodwin, a potters’ miller from Stoke-on-Trent. He stayed only three years, returning to England in December 1844, shortly after his brother Thomas had joined him in Illinois. Thomas became a successful farmer. Letters to Thomas Goodwin from his relations in Stoke-on-Trent, including James, were published in Of What We Potters Are: A History of Some Descendants of John Goodwin of Cheddleton, Staffordshire, England, Based upon Letters from England and Other Family Letters, 1845–98, edited by W. L. Goodwin (n.p., privately printed, 1975).
32. Benjamin Berrisford returned to Stoke-on-Trent in 1844 with James Goodwin. A letter from Berrisford to his wife and children dated December 19, 1843, was published in PE&WA 2, no. 6 (July 6, 1844): 46.
33. Letter from Walter and Sarah Croxton of Alton, Illinois, dated November 1, 1841, in PE&WA 1, no. 21 (April 20, 1844): 167.
34. “4s per dozen.” Before the decimalization of British currency in the 1970s, money was divided in pounds, shillings, and pence, frequently abbreviated to £.s.d. There were twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound. At this time the pound–dollar exchange rate was approximately five dollars to the pound.
35. “4’s jugs, plain.” In Stoke-on-Trent the size of flat wares were reckoned by the inch, hollow wares were reckoned by the dozen, but a potter’s dozen was rarely twelve. “4’s” were therefore large jugs as there would be only four to the dozen, “12’s French” referred to as the next item were smaller vessels, counted as twelve to the dozen. The potter’s dozen could be as few as four or as many as forty-eight to the dozen. Walter and Thomas carried their familiar way of reckoning with them in their new venture.
36. Nappies were shallow dishes. As flatware they were reckoned by the inch. “12’s” were therefore twelve inches in diameter.
37. Twifflers were plates between 8 1/2 to 9 3/8inches. Muffins were plates between 7 1/2 and 8 3/8 inches.
38. Letter from Walter and Sarah Croxton of Alton, Illinois, dated September 12, 1843, in PE&WA 1, no. 22 (April 28, 1844): 175–76.
39. Gotham presumably meant that Harrison was born in America, rather than being an immigrant as were so many settlers in Illinois.
40. Possibly the Robinson mentioned in Walter Croxton’s letter (see note 33).
41. James Clews of Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent, was a master potter who had been declared bankrupt in 1834. He came to Troy, Indiana, in 1837 to establish a white ware manufactory but failed. It was taken over by Jabez Vodrey, another Englishman, from 1837–1846. Frank Stefano, Jr., “James Clews, 19th century Potter,” parts 1 and 2, Antiques 105, no. 2 (February 1974): 324–328; no. 3 (March 1974): 553–555. Letter from Thomas Gotham of St. Louis, Missouri, December 18, 1842, to Mr. Michael Hill, Clayton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, in PE&WA 4, no. 23 (November 1, 1845): 189–90.
42. “Play” was the north Staffordshire term for being idle through lack of work. It was often used ironically by potters when their employers would not provide work for them.
43. Letter from Elijah and Charlotte Croxton of St. Louis, Missouri, dated April 30, 1843, to “Father, Mother, Brothers and Sisters,” in PE&WA 4, no. 24 (November 8, 1845): 189–90.
44. William Ridgway, a pottery manufacturer from Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, came to Kentucky in the early 1840s to set up a factory there. He failed, and the sale notice for his American property was advertised in the Staffordshire Advertiser newspaper, August 12, 1848. Geoffrey Godden, Ridgway Porcelains (Wappingers Falls, N.Y.: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1985), p. 169.
45. John, Thomas, and Jos Mayer had an earthenware manufactory at Longport from 1843 to 1855. They exported much of their ware to the United States.
46. Letter from John Poole of Washington County, Missouri, dated July 17, 1845, to John Mould, Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent, in PE&WA 5, no. 1 (November 29, 1845): 213.
47. There were four Howson brothers. Three immigrated to America, while the fourth, George, remained in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, and opened his own pottery as a sanitary ware manufacturer.
48. Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, was the main market town of north Staffordshire, about five miles from Burslem where the Howson family lived.
49. A pottery-making district of Derbyshire from which a number of men emigrated to America.
50. Presumably at Vodrey’s factory.
51. Letter from B. Howson, East Liverpool, Columbia City, Ohio, to Mr. John Howson, dated September 12, 1843, in PE&WA 1, no. 16 (March 16, 1844): 125.
52. Letter from J. Walker of Utica, New York, to Mr. John Howson, undated, in PE&WA 1, no. 12 (February 17, 1844): 95–96.
53. In fact Howson left Stoke-on-Trent in June 1844, only a few days before Garner. In light of their subsequent actions, it is very probable that they discussed Walker’s letters: both were published in PE&WA before the two men left England.
54. Letter from S. [sic] Walker of Utica, New York, to Mr. Garner, dated March 25, 1844, in PE&WA 2, no. 10 (August 3, 1844): 78–79.
55. Ashby-wholds was a center for pottery making, near Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire. A number of potters at East Liverpool, including the Bennett brothers and the Tunnicliffes, were from Derbyshire, rather than the neighboring county of Staffordshire.
56. Garner was a thrower; Cartwright was presumably turning Garner’s ware for him.
57. Letter from George Garner of Birmingham, Allegany County, State of Pensilvania [sic], dated December 25, 1844, in PE&WA 3, no. 12 (February 15, 1845): 93–94.
58. Posthumous Letter of a Pioneer Potter (East Liverpool, Ohio: Simms Printing Co., 1934).
59. Gates, City of Hills & Kilns, p. 44.
60. According to George Garner’s letter in PE&WA 3, no. 12 (February 15, 1845): 93–94, Howson landed in New York early in August 1844. If he stayed nine months at Utica he would have left for Zanesville in May 1845.
61. Letter from John Howson, Zanesville, Muskingham County, Ohio, to Mr. Thomas Lloyd, dated February 8, 1846, in PE&WA 5, no. 25 (May 16, 1846): 197–98.
62. Zanesville Courier, December 5, 1846. Richard Hallam, the new partner, was also from England.
63. Letter from Sarah Tunnicliffe to an unknown correspondent, dated April 21, 1851, and reproduced in the Sunday Times Signal, Zanesville (Ohio), June 26, 1949.
64. The Tunnicliffes, like Howson, produced Rockingham and yellow wares. Bernard Howson had known the family from the time when both had worked in East Liverpool for the Bennett brothers. He joined the Tunnicliffes as a thrower. Sunday Times Signal, Zanesville (Ohio), November 17, 1957.
65. Possibly the Thomas Cartwright who went to East Liverpool and Birmingham.
66. Letter from Thomas Mountford of Whitewater, Wallworth County, Wisconsin Territory, dated November 1, 1846, to Barnet Mountford, in PE&WA 6, no. 24 (August 8, 1846): 190.
67. Possibly another reference to Thomas Cartwright.
68. An interesting contrast with Wedgwood’s comments.
69. It is possible that Enoch Bradshaw was not the only potter to have been turned off for his radical beliefs.
70. Throwers in Staffordshire invariably used the “Great Wheel” in which the motive power was provided by a child or woman. This type of wheel was clearly not used in Wisconsin where Mountford was using a type of kick wheel.
71. Letter from Thomas Mountford of Whitewater, Wallworth County, Wisconsin Territory, dated February 19, 1847, to Barnet Mountford in PE&WA 7, no. 26 (June 26, 1847): 198.
72. The Staffordshire Advertiser, August 17, 1850, and March 1, 1851.
73. Gates, City of Hills & Kilns, p. 89, Table 4.
74. Ibid., pp. 44–45. Cartwright was one of the six men who emigrated in June 1844.
75. Annual hiring contracts were abolished in 1866, although Martinmas remained the time when wage rates were set for the following year until 1888. Payment “good from oven” was finally abolished in 1964. It had lingered in the sanitary ware trade after being abolished in other branches in 1919.
76. Letter from Sarah Eardley, Staffordshire, 1879, quoted in Gates, City of Hills & Kilns, p. 88.
77. Ibid. |