164 THE WEDGWOODS. 



however, passed with the alteration that it should end at 

 Burslem instead of being continued to Cliff Bank. The 

 formation of this turnpike-road which has the reputation 

 of being the first in the Potteries was mainly due to the 

 immense exertions of Wedgwood, who only grew more 

 determined as opposition increased, and eventually carried 

 his point, and thus conferred an incalculable benefit on the 

 neighbourhood, much against its will. 



In the course of his own business, as well as upon the 

 schemes of the turnpike-road and canal, Wedgwood had not 

 unfrequently occasion to go to Liverpool, where, indeed, 

 he had already found an important market for his goods. 

 On one of these visits, in consequence of some accidental 

 aggravation of his old complaint, he was laid up for some 

 weeks, and was then under the charge of, I have reason to 

 believe, Dr. Matthew Turner, a man of high intellectual 

 attainments, and an excellent chemist, who resided in John 

 Street, and to whom the merit of the re-discovery of much 

 of the lost art of glass-staining belongs. * 



The doctor was an intimate friend of Mr. Thomas Bentley, 

 of Liverpool, a man of superior attainments, of refined taste, 

 and of most agreeable manners and conversational powers, 

 and "pitying the situation of Mr. Wedgwood, a stranger, 

 and so much afflicted, introduced Mr. Bentley to him as a 

 companion, whose intelligence, vivacity, and philanthropy, 

 would quicken the lingering hours of pain." From this 

 acquaintanceship, so accidentally and so strangely brought 

 about, sprung up a lasting friendship, which ripened as time 

 drew on, until it culminated in a partnership, and ended only 

 in the death of Bentley. 



And here let me correct a wide-spread error regarding 

 this well-known partner of Josiah Wedgwood's, concerning 

 whom I shall have some particulars to give in another 

 chapter. Ward, in his " History of Stoke-upon-Trent," a 



* This clever man, I believe, in conjunction with Mr. Chubbard, 

 executed the south window of St. Anne's Church, Liverpool. 



