A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



In the municipal records and in the registers 

 at St. Peter's Church there are numerous 

 references to the existence of regular clay-getting 

 and pot works in Liverpool at the commence- 

 ment of the eighteenth century. At the par- 

 liamentary election, 1734, the list of persons 

 who polled contains several described as potters. 

 Amongst the corporation leases is one dated 

 2 -May, 1753, from William Rowe to several 

 merchants, described as partners, in which it is 

 stipulated that they should have his mill for the 

 use of their new pot-house in Dale Street. 



An interesting advertisement appeared in the 

 Liverpool Advertiser on 18 June, 1756 : — 



The Proprietors of the Mould Works, near the 

 Infirmary, Liverpool, acquaint the public that they 

 continue to make all sorts of sugar moulds and drips, 

 chimney moulds, large jars for vfater, black mugs of 

 sizes, crucibles and melting pots for silver smiths, 

 founders, &c., and sell them on the same terms as from 

 Prescot, Sutton, and other places. 



With regard to the potteries outside Liverpool 

 not very much is known. In the Index to 

 Lancashire If'i//s at Chester^ we find references 

 to clay potters at Rainford in 1709, 17 10, 17 13, 

 and 1734, at Bickerstaffe 1 7 10, at Windle 

 1 712, at Eccleston 1706, at Sutton 1727 and 

 1765, at Winston 1738, and at Prescot 1734, 

 1742, 1745, 1762, 1767 and 1768. At the 

 last place we learn from Baines, writing in 

 1835,' that for ages there have been there 

 several manufactories of coarse earthenware, for 

 which the clay of the neighbourhood is par- 

 ticularly adapted. A plan of the town taken in 

 the early part of the eighteenth century exhibits 

 six of these factories. Aikin ■* also refers to 

 Prescot having 'several manufactories of coarse 

 earthenware.' An earlier reference to Prescot is 

 that of Dr. Pococke in 1751 ' : — 



They have two or three houses for coarse earthen- 

 ware and one for the whitestone and work it as they 

 say higher with the fire than at Lambeth. They 

 make it of a mixture of two sorts of clay which they 

 find here. 



Other references to pottery outside Liverpool 

 are those of Aikin to the making of sugar 

 moulds and coarse earthenware at Sutton,' and 

 Folkard to the pottery industry of Wigan, which 

 is described as flourishing during the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries, and as ceasing to exist 

 in the early part of the nineteenth.' 



With regard to Liverpool, Arthur Young 

 writes in 1769 ' there is a manufacture of porce- 



Lanc. and Ches. Rec. Soc. xviii, xx, xxv, xxivii. 

 ' Hist, of Lam. iii, 707. 

 ' A Description of Manchester, 1 795, p. 311. 

 ' Dr. Rich. Pococke, Travels through England 

 (Camden Soc. 1888), ii, 208. 



* A Description of Manchester, 313. 

 ' Folkard, Industries of Wigan, i^. 



lain in this place, which employs many hands ; 

 the men in it earn from seven to nine shillings.' * 

 The industry at this time must have been very 

 considerable, as the list of voters at the parlia- 

 mentary election in I 76 1 contains the names of 

 about 1 1 7 Liverpool potters. Towards the end 

 of the eighteenth century, however, the industry 

 began to die out. About the last pottery to be 

 established was the Herculaneum Pottery, founded 

 in 1794. This lasted till 1841, when it was 

 closed, the site being required for the Herculaneum 

 Dock. Originally the principal pot works 

 had lain towards the lower part of Dale Street, 

 but the last potter on this celebrated site was 

 Mr. Zachariah Barnes, who died in 1820. By 

 the middle of the nineteenth century the pottery 

 industry appears to have died out in south-west 

 Lancashire, judging from the statement of Mr. 

 Joseph Mayer in 1855 : — 



There is now a small manufactory at St. Helens, 

 which may be considered the last relic of pottery in 

 this neighbourhood, but that concern has not been 

 occupied for some time.' 



At the present time Messrs. Doulton have a 

 branch of their tile and pottery works at St. Helens. 



Quite recently a tile and pottery manufactur- 

 ing concern has been established in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Manchester. The Pilkington Tile 

 and Pottery Manufacturing Company, Ltd., was 

 founded in 1892 with works at Clifton Junction. 

 At the outset the firm undertook the manufac- 

 ture of wall, floor and decorative tiles as its 

 principal products. Later they began to make 

 ceramic mosaics, being one of the first firms in 

 this country to do so. The rest of their output 

 consists of pottery. The firm have throughout 

 their existence paid particular attention to the 

 colouring and glazing of their products. 



According to the census returns for the county, 

 the pottery industry has been steadily growing 

 in recent years. In 1881, 483 men and 52 

 women were employed in the manufacture of 

 earthenware, china, and porcelain. In 1891 

 the figures were 496 and 1 1 7 respectively. Ten 

 years later they were 1,317 and 303 re- 

 spectively. 



GLASS 



The earliest seat of the glass industry in Lan- 

 cashire appears to have been at Haughton, which 

 lies on the Tame, between Hyde and Stockport. 

 Here there was a collection of houses known as 

 Glass House Fold. It is said to have derived 



' Arthur Young, Tour in the North of England (2nd 

 cd.), iii, 169. 



' Hist. Soc. of Lane, and Ches. vii, 207. Where 

 no reference is given, the information concerning 

 Liverpool potteries is taken from C. T. Gatty, The 

 Liverpool Potteries, Hist. Soc. of Lane, and Ches. xxxiii, 

 or T. Mayer, Hist. Soc. of Lane, and Ches. xxiii. 



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