160 History of Inland Transport 



From Winsford the pottery-makers received, by pack- 

 horse or waggon, supplies of clay which had been sent from 

 Devonshire or other western counties by sea to Liverpool, 

 and there transhipped in barges, in which it was sent twenty 

 miles down the Weaver, thence to be carried twenty miles 

 by road. From Willington they received flints which had 

 been brought by sea, first to Hull, then forwarded by barge 

 along the Humber to the Trent, and so on to Willington, to 

 be carried thirty miles by road. 



Manufactured pottery for London or for the Continent was 

 sent by road to Willington, and then along the Trent and the 

 Humber to Hull, where it was re-shipped to destination. 

 Exports were, also, despatched either to the Severn, along 

 which they were taken in barges to Bristol, or via the Weaver 

 to Liverpool. Concerning the Severn route it is stated in 

 " The Advantages of Inland Navigation " (1766), by Richard 

 Whitworth, afterwards M.P. for Stafford : " There are three 

 pot-waggons go from Newcastle and Burslem weekly, through 

 Eccleshall and Newport to Bridgnorth, and carry about eight 

 tons of pot-ware every week, at 3/. per ton. The same waggons 

 load back with ten tons of close goods, consisting of white 

 clay, grocery and iron, at the same price, delivered on their 

 road to Newcastle. Large quantities of pot-ware are con- 

 veyed on horses' backs from Burslem and Newcastle to 

 Bridgnorth and Bewdley for exportation about one hundred 

 tons yearly, at 2.1. los. per ton." 



The cost of land transport, along roads of the worst pos- 

 sible description, was considerable in itself. In a pamphlet 

 published in 1765, under the title of " A View of the Ad- 

 vantages of Inland Navigations, with a Plan of a Navigable 

 Canal intended for a Communication between the Ports of 

 Liverpool and Hull " (said to have been written by Josiah 

 Wedgwood and his partner, Bentley), it is stated that be- 

 tween Birmingham and London the cost of road transport 

 amounted to about eight shillings per ton for every ten miles, 

 but along the route of the proposed canal, and in many other 

 places, the cost was nine shillings per ton for every ten miles. 

 The pamphlet adds, on this particular point : 



" The burthen of so expensive a land carriage to Winsford 

 and Willington, and the uncertainty of the navigations from 

 those places to Frodsham, in Cheshire, and Wilden, in Derby- 



