STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES. 



extraordinary and curious measures to keep in profound secrecy 

 their materials and their processes. With this view they not only 

 excluded most rigorously from their works all visitors whatever, 

 but selected for their operatives the most stupid and ignorant 

 persons they could find, and so divided the labour that no one 

 individual possessed more knowledge than that of the very process 

 at which he was employed. These precautions were, however, of 

 little avail. The stimulus of profit and the spirit of enterprise 

 are not to be repressed by such shallow expedients. A workman 

 named Twyford imposed upon them by affecting indifference to 

 the art, and managed to get admitted to their employment. He 

 soon ascertained some of their secrets, but it remained for another 

 more astute and persevering person to discover all the details of 

 their processes. An individual named Astbury, appreciating the 

 importance of the manufacture, and foreseeing the profits likely to 

 arise from it, decided on adopting a course and persevering in it, 

 which, as he imagined, and as proved by the event, would lead to 

 a complete discovery. He affected the manners of an idiot, 

 deceived them, and got into their employment, and was adroit 

 enough to sustain the deception for several years, until he became 

 complete master of their secrets. After this, the Messrs. Elers 

 left Staffordshire in apparent disgust, and settled in London, 

 where, at a later period, they were probably instrumental in 

 establishing the well-known porcelain works at Chelsea. 



21 . One of the ingredients of fine pottery is silica, or the earth of 

 flints. The circumstance which led to the application of this 

 substance to the art is thus related : Mr. Astbury, the son and 

 successor of him who gained the knowledge of the Elers's secret by 

 feigning idiocy, being on his road to London, and making the 

 journey on horseback, was stopped at Dunstable in consequence of 

 his horse being attacked with a malady of the eyes. The inn- 

 keeper at whose house he put up advised him to apply a poultice 

 of calcined fiints. Astbuiy observed that the flints, which before 

 calcination were black, and semi-transparent, were by this process 

 of calcination converted into a white opaque substance. It 

 occurred to him that he might by like means bleach the clay of 

 which the pottery was made, and which was reddish in its colour, 

 by mixing with it more or less of the matter thus whitened in the 

 fire. He accordingly realised this idea with complete success, 

 and silica or the earth of flints became thenceforward a necessary 

 ingredient of the paste. 



22. Among the improvers and inventors of this" epoch the most 

 memorable was Josiah Wedgwood, whose name has since become 

 so inseparably connected with this branch of the national 

 indnstry. 



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