THE EARLY POTTERIES OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 51 



Tiles for garden edgings were at this time made at New- 

 castle-under-Lyme, and must have had extensive sale, as the 

 gardens of the better kind were, in those days, always laid 

 out in " knots " of more or less elaborate design. Plot, 

 speaking of this branch of manufacture, says : 



" Also at Newcastle-under-Lyme, the Tiles burnt in a Kill the 

 usual way being found not to last, one Mr. Thomas Wood of the 

 same Towne, first contrived to burn them (which we may look upon as 

 an art relating to Fire) in a Potters? Oven ; wherein he made them 

 so good and lasting, that notwithstanding they have been put to the 

 hardship of dividing the parts of garden knots, to endure not only 

 the perpetual moisture of the earth, but frost, snow, and all sorts of 

 weather; yet they few of them decay, scarce five tiles in five 

 hundred having failed in twenty yeares' time ; so that now he has 

 been followed by all the countrey thereabout." 



Long before the period about which I am now writing, the 

 Wedgwoods, as I shall show in the course of this work, were 

 potters in Burslem, and produced most of the varieties of 

 wares then in use. The family was one of considerable note, 

 and branches of it were settled in different localities. One 

 of these settled in Yorkshire, and for several generations 

 were potters there ; and other branches settled in Cumber- 

 land, Westmoreland, and other districts, and carried on their 

 family trade. One interesting piece of earthenware, connected 

 with the Wedgwood family, has recently been added to the 

 Museum of Practical Geology, and as it is dated of the 

 period to which in my narrative I have now arrived, I have 

 introduced an engraving on the following page which I am 

 enabled, through the courtesy of Mr.Reeks, who has supplied 

 the drawing, to give. It is a " Puzzle Jug," of brown ware, 

 bearing the name of an early member of the Wedgwood 

 family. It bears the name incised 



JOHN WEDO WOOD 1691. 



The jug is more simple in construction than many are, the 

 hollow channel merely passing up the handle and round the 

 upper rim, which has three spouts. 



