WOLSTANTON. JAMES BRINDLEY. 71 



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and that anything approaching towards art, or even moderate 

 utility, was unknown. Of some of these early potters I have 

 already spoken, and have endeavoured to show that Stafford- 

 shire could boast not only of master-minds, but of skilful 

 and expert hands, long before the period to which the first 

 approach to art in the district is generally ascribed. 



The family of Wedgwood, for many generations before the 

 birth of Josiah, had been potters at Burslem, and indeed a 

 considerable portion of the place belonged to one branch of 

 them, 'having passed into their hands by marriage with the 

 heiress of the De Burslems, the original owners of the place, 

 in the beginning of the seventeenth century. They were 

 thus people of note in the district, and it is affirmed that 

 one-third of the inhabitants of Burslem at one time bore the 

 now honoured name of Wedgwood, or were descended from 

 them. 



The Wedgwoods originally, I believe, were of Wedgwood, 

 a parish in the township of Wolstanton, in the very centre 

 of the Potteries. The church of St. Margaret, Wolstanton 

 a fine and particularly interesting building standing on the 

 summit of a high hill, forms one of the most conspicuous 

 and pleasing objects in the district. It lies on the high road 

 from Burslem to Newcas tie-under- Lyme, and commands 

 one of the finest views which can anywhere be obtained of 

 the busy hives of potting industry by which it is surrounded. 

 In this church James Brindley, the engineer or " the 

 schemer," as he was popularly called married, when half a 

 century old, his young, loving, and priceless wife of nine- 

 teen, Anne Henshall, on the 8th of December, 1765; and 

 in the same parish, at New Chapel,* not far from his 

 residence at Turnhurst, he was buried, in less than seven 

 years afterwards, after passing a most worthy and industrious 

 life, and earning for himself a name and a fame which are 



* Brindley was buried in the churchyard at New Chapel, his tombstone 

 bearing the simple inscription 



u ln Memory of James Brindley, of Turnhurst, Engineer, who was 

 Interred here, September 30, 1772, Aged 56." 



