68 THE WEDGWOODS. 



so give a general insight into the progress of the fictile art 

 in Staffordshire. 



My object has been to show, what has never before been 

 shown, a continuous chain of evidence of pottery having 

 been made in the district from the earliest the pre-historic 

 times, down through, every successive change of periods 

 and of races, to the present, and to bring my narrative down 

 to the time of the great Josiah Wedgwood, and to give a 

 slight and but a very slight insight into the state of the 

 art at the time when that famous master of his craft first 

 entered into existence. 



I have shown that the art of potting was practised by the 

 ancient British inhabitants of Staffordshire ; have given 

 reasons for believing that it was followed in the district by 

 the Roman occupiers of the soil ; have shown that the 

 Anglo-Saxons practised it in the neighbourhood ; and that 

 through the whole of the mediaeval period, and without 

 intermission to the present day, pot making has continued 

 in the locality. I have given illustrative engravings of some 

 of the characteristic examples of the different periods, for the 

 purpose of enabling the collector to appropriate correctly 

 such specimens as may come into his hands ; and having 

 done this, I proceed in the next part of my work to speak of 

 the great master of his craft, Josiah Wedgwood, and to trace 

 by the events of his life the progress of the art which he 

 dignified and brought to perfection. Other great potters 

 the Turners, Booths, Woods, Spodes, Mintons, Mayers, 

 Neales, Yateses, and other art-heroes and the important 

 parts they have played in bringing the district to its present 

 flourishing position, and the manufacture to the high state 

 of perfection it now enjoys, must be left for a future work. 



