146 . THE WEDGWOODS. 



never to have been dispersed.* This example, a butter-boat 

 of excellent form, is here engraved. 



A few years before this time, Messrs. John Sadler and 

 Guy Green, of Liverpool, had Brought out their invention of 

 printing on earthenware tiles, which process had occupied 

 their attention for some years. John Sadler, it appears, 

 from what information has been collected by my friend Mr. 

 Mayer, F.S.A., of Liverpool who owns one of, if not the, 

 finest private museums in the kingdom, and whose public 

 spirit in the cause of antiquities is beyond all praise was 

 the son of Adam Sadler, a favourite soldier of the great Duke 

 of Marlborough, and was out with that general in the Low 

 Countries war. Whilst there, he lodged in the house of a 

 printer, and thus obtained an insight into the art of printing. 

 On returning to England on the accession of George I., he 

 left the army in disgust and retired to Ulverstone, where he 

 married a Miss Bibby, who numbered among her acquaint- 

 ance the daughters of the Earl of Sefton. Through the , 

 influence of these ladies he removed to Melling, and after- 

 wards leased a house at Aintree. In this lease he is styled 

 "Adam Sadler, of Melling, gentleman." The taste he had 

 acquired in the Low Countries abiding with him, he shortly 

 afterwards, however, removed to the New Market, Liverpool, 

 where he printed a great number of books amongst which, 

 being himself an excellent musician, one called " The Muses' 

 Delight" was with him an especial favourite. His son, John 

 Sadler, having learned the art of engraving, on the termination 

 of his apprenticeship bought a house from his father, in Har- 

 rington Street, for the nominal sum of five shillings, and in 

 that house, in 1748, commenced business on his own account. 

 Here he married a Miss Elizabeth Parker, daughter of Mr. 



* I cannot forbear expressing a profound regret a regret shared in by 

 all lovers of English fictile Art that this collection, made long ago, at 

 immense labour and at considerable cost, should have been allowed to be 

 frittered away and destroyed. Some of the examples are now in the 

 Museum at the Mechanics' Institution, Hanley, others are in the Museum 

 of the Athenseum at Stoke, and others again are in the Museum of 

 Practical Geology, London. 



