SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



hard water beneath the town of Burton, and largely utilized for the making 

 of beer, comes in part from that source. 8 



The limestone district in north-east Staffordshire does not get the full 

 benefit of the streams that pass through it, owing to the porous character of 

 the rocks, and to fissures through which much of the water disappears. A 

 notable example of this may be seen in the Manifold valley, where the rivers 

 Hamps and Manifold run underground for several miles of their course to 

 reappear again together at Ham. 9 



It was along the river valleys that the most important towns of mediaeval 

 Staffordshire were to be found Stafford, for instance, at the junction of 

 several valleys encircled by small hills, Lichfield and Tamworth, respectively 

 the centres of the ecclesiastical and political life of the old Mercian kingdom, 

 Burton on the banks of the Trent, the seat of an ancient monastery dating 

 back to the tenth century. Up to the eighteenth century the population 

 was fairly evenly distributed over the county, with the exception of the barren 

 moorland regions in the north and south. Its economic prosperity depended 

 mainly upon agriculture, carried on chiefly in the well-watered fertile plain 

 which lies between the northern and southern coalfields, and which is still 

 largely an agricultural region. 



At the present day the greater part of the population is found massed 

 together in two great industrial regions, known respectively as the Potteries 

 and the Black Country, in the neighbourhood of the two great coalfields. It 

 is here that the large towns of modern Staffordshire are to be found, for 

 Stafford is no longer ' the most considerable town in the county, with the 

 exception of Lichfield,' as it was in the time of Defoe (1778). 10 



Of the four largest towns, judged by the last census return (1901), three, 

 Wolverhampton, Walsall, and West Bromwich, are in South Staffordshire, 

 whilst the fourth largest, Hanley, is, of course, the chief of the pottery towns, 

 being a county borough, but it was unknown to mediaeval Staffordshire, save 

 as an insignificant part of the ancient parish of Stoke upon Trent. 



The situation of these North Staffordshire pottery towns is interesting 

 and significant, showing that the manufacture of pottery has from very early 

 times been the staple industry of the district. For though as towns they are 

 of comparatively modern growth, they date back to early times as villages, 

 and they are not situated along the outcrops of the main seams of coal, but 

 extend in an almost continuous line from Longton in the south to Tunstall 

 in the north along the outcrop of the quick burning coals, clays, and marls, 

 which were once used in the manufacture of the coarse pottery of the early 

 days, and are still used for making the ' saggers ' in which the ware is placed 

 for firing in the ovens. Newcastle-under-Lyme is not, strictly speaking, 

 within the Potteries, being situated on a wide strip of barren measures let 

 down by the Apedale Fault between the pottery towns on the east and the 



8 H. Evershed, ' Agricultural Surv. of Staff.' Journ. Roy. Agric. Sac. (2nd Ser.), vol. v, 1869, p. 296. 



9 See Dr. Darwin's description of these rivers. The Botanic Garden, Part ii, Canto iii, 129 : 

 ' Where Hamps and Manifold their cliffs among On beds of lava sleep in coral cells 



Each in his flinty channel winds along, And sigh o'er jasper fish and agate shells, 



With lucid lines the dusky moor divides Till where famed Ham leads his boiling floods 



Hurrying to intermix their sister tides. Thro' flowery meadows and impending woods, 



Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray Pleas'd with light spring they leave the dreary night ! 



Or seek thro' sullen mines their gloomy way ; And mid circumfluent surges rise to light.' 



10 Defoe,, Tour through Great Britain (8th ed.), ii, 358. 



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