410 THE WEDGWOODS. 



mission by the family until the last four years. The works 

 are now carried on by the " Old Hall Earthenware Com- 

 pany," the principal shareholders in which are Mr. Charles 

 Meigh, jun., and other members of that family. All the usual 

 varieties of earthenware ase there produced, and of every 

 quality, from the very plainest for common household use, to 

 the most highly decorated for the mansions of the wealthy. 

 Parian statuary is also produced of excellent quality, and 

 stone ware is likewise made in a variety of ways. The Old 

 Hall Works employ, I believe, on an average, no less than 

 five hundred hands. 



The three great pottery towns of Stoke, Burslem, and 

 Hanley, have in many instances shown a jealousy or a 

 rivalry of each other. There has frequently been a want 

 of hand-in-hand feeling among them which has had to 

 be deplored. In the case of the Wedgwood memorials that 

 feeling has, I am happy to say, though unintentionally, 

 resulted in good to all. Stoke and Hanley opposed Burslem 

 in her scheme of a Wedgwood Institute and School of Art, 

 and Burslem opposed them in their proposed Wedgwood 

 statue. As it is, Stoke and Hanley have succeeded in 

 erecting the statue ; Burslem is building its institution ; and 

 Hanley of itself has reason to feel proud of its museum, 

 which possesses the indentures of Wedgwood's apprentice- 

 ship, a good selection of his productions, and the cabinet 

 containing the results of his researches.* Thus all three are 



* In the museum at Hanley are many interesting specimens of the 

 different varieties of " Wedgwood ware," which the collector will be in- 

 terested in examining. Among these are remarkably good examples of 

 flowered vases of Japanese style, and of large size, both with a light 

 ground, with birds and flowers in bright colours, and with a black ground 

 with similar decorations, and an open work basket of bamboo. In the 

 same museum is preserved as truly interesting a relic of the latter days of 

 the great Josiah as that of his early time the indenture of his appren- 

 ticeship to which I have before referred. I allude to the cabinet a 

 large one containing a multiplicity of drawers in which he 'arranged his 

 specimens of clays and other earthy substances, his fossils, and the results 

 of his trials into their properties. In this cabinet all these objects, 

 although, of course, many times disturbed, and in most cases injured, still 



