THE EARLY POTTERIES OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 29 



at Uttoxeter at that remote period. And yet it may be reasonably 

 inferred that the pots of 1644 were of the size of those manufactured 

 after 1661 ; for it appears the Act was passed more for the prevention 

 of any irregularity in the size of the pots, and the mode of packing 

 butter in them, than for any actual alteration of the size the pots 

 were understood to be. If so, butter then at Uttoxeter was worth 

 but about twopence a pound, supposing the five pots of butter sent 

 to Tutbury, costing 1 2s., contained fourteen pounds of butter each. 

 About fifty years before butter was retailed throughout the kingdom 

 at sevenpence per pound ; but this was regarded as an enormous 

 price, which, Stowe says, ' was a judgment for their sins.' It is 

 highly probable, therefore, that the pots contained fourteen pounds 

 of butter, which consequently was twopence per pound at Uttoxeter, 

 when the five pots were bought, especially as it corresponds with 

 the price of cheese at that time in the town, as to which the old 

 parochial accounts have preserved very distinct information, the sum 

 of 7 1 5s. Wd. having been paid for 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 7 Ibs., which was 

 also for the besieged at Tutbury." 



The following entries, from the churchwardens' accounts 

 of Uttoxeter, illustrate this interesting subject : 



c. q. Ib. s. d. 



1644. May 7. For 8 2 7 of cheese to Tutbury . '. . 7 15 10 



For 5 potts of butter to ditto 12 



1645. June 25. Bread, beer, cheese, a pot of butter, and a 



flitch of bacon, for Lieut.-Col. Watson's 



men quartered at Blunts Hall ... 2 5 6 



The butter pots were tall cylindrical vessels, of coarse 

 clay, and very imperfectly baked. They are now of great 

 rarity, but specimens may be seen in the Hanley Museum, 

 and in the Museum of Practical Geology. Their form will be 

 understood by the engraving on the next page, which exhibits 

 one example from each of these museums. It is worthy of 

 remark that even yet, as it was in Shaw's days, Irish or 

 Dutch butter, which is generally imported in casks, and is 

 in most places known as " tub butter," is, in the potteries, 

 usually called " pot butter." 



Of the state of the Staffordshire potteries at this period, 

 the latter half of the seventeenth century, Dr. Plot gives a 



