170 THE WEDGWOODS. 



of the roads in the pottery district, and to the opposition 

 which Wedgwood met in his laudable endeavours for their 

 improvement. The same reason which induced him to 

 promote the improvement of the roads actuated him in his 

 labours to promote the canal. The transit of goods to and 

 fro was heavy, and greatly impeded the rising trade of the 

 county ; and it became, in his expansive mind, a matter of 

 absolute necessity that greater means of communication 

 should be provided. As it was, the roads were scarcely 

 passable even in summer to the lumbering old waggons and 

 carts which occasionally jolted along them. They were 

 narrow, with high banks at their sides, always, even in 

 summer, soft and clayey, and full of deep ruts, in which 

 the wheels sank and stuck fast. In winter, even the strings 

 of pack-horses, which did somehow or other manage to drag 

 their weary way along, knee-deep in mud, could scarcely 

 get from place to place, and many a poor brute fell down 

 exhausted, and died on the road, breaking, in falling, the 

 heavy load of crockery it bore on its back. 



It must be remembered that some of the essentials of the 

 potter's art had to be brought on the backs of these pack- 

 horses, or by* cart and waggon, from great distances, and 

 that by the same means provisions had to be procured and 

 pottery despatched. Although coal was plentiful on the 

 spot, and the commoner clays abundant, flint, one of the 

 essentials of fine wares, and of heavy carriage, had to be 

 brought from the nearest point of water communication, 

 which was at Willington in Derbyshire, to which place, 

 having come by sea to Hull, it was brought up the river 

 Trent. Clays from Cornwall, Devonshire, and Dorsetshire, 

 had to be brought up in like manner from Bewdley, Bridg- 

 north, Winsford, Cavendish Bridge, and other places, to 

 which it had been brought by water. In the same manner 

 salt and lead had to be conveyed to the district ; and thus 

 the restrictions on trade were immense, and there was diffi- 

 culty in procuring even the common necessaries of food 

 and clothing. Shops, of course, there were none worthy of 



