162 THE WEDGWOODS. 



" being the Gentlemen and Freeholders " of the liberty and 

 manor, who " do firmly promise to advance the sums of 

 money following their names, to be applyed in errecting the 

 piece of Building for the use ajid purpose above mentioned ; 

 that is to say, a Schoole for the education of poore 

 children." In this list, Josiah Wedgwood, and his relatives, 

 Burslem and Thomas Wedgwood, appear for the sum of 

 10 each, being amongst the highest contributors. This 

 scheme was afterwards altered, and from it sprang the 

 present Town Hall and Market of Burslem. 



About the same period he had been busying himself in 

 the project for making a turnpike road through the district, 

 which was achieved by the passing of the Act of Parliament 

 a few months before his marriage. The state of the roads at 

 this time maybe gleaned from the following extract from 

 the petition of the potters, in 1762 ; and it is highly credit- 

 able to Wedgwood, that in this, as in the case of the schools, 

 of the Grand Trunk Canal (of which I shall have to speak 

 later on), and of every other scheme which could benefit his 

 native town or its surrounding district, or tend to the increase 

 of its trade, he was not only one of the foremost and most 

 strenuous supporters, but was the prime mover. The peti- 

 tion says : 



" In Burslem and its neighbourhood are near one hundred and 

 fifty separate potteries for making various kinds of stone and earthen 

 Ware, which together find constant employment and support for 

 near seven thousand people. The ware of these potteries is ex- 

 ported in vast quantities from London, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull, and 

 other seaports, to our several colonies in America and the West 

 Indies, as well as to almost every port in Europe. Great quantities 

 of flint stones are used in making some of the ware, which are 

 brought by sea from different parts of the coast of Liverpool and 

 Hull ; and the clay for making the white ware is brought from 

 Devonshire and Cornwall chiefly to Liverpool, the materials from 

 Whence are brought by water up the rivers Mersey and Weaver to 

 Winsford, in Cheshire ; those from Hull up the Trent to "Wellington ; 

 and from Winsford and "Wellington the whole are brought by land 

 carriage to Burslem. The ware, when made, is conveyed to Liver- 



