Stoke in 1842
STOKE, distinguished as STOKE-UPON-TRENT, one of the new parliamentary boroughs created by the Reform Act, in the northern division of Pyrehill hundred, in the county of Stafford. Stoke, which gives name to the borough, and Burslem, one of the principal towns in it, are each 152 miles north-west from the General Post-office, London, by Barnet, St. Albans, Daventry, Coventry, Coleshill, Lichfield, Stone, and Newcastle-under-Lyne ; or 162 miles by the Birmingham and Grand Junction railways to Stafford, and from thence by Sandon and Newcastle. Hanley, the largest town in the district, is about a mile farther.
This borough has this peculiarity, that instead of comprehending one principal town and its suburbs, it consists of a considerable district, extending 7 miles in length from north-north-west to south-south-east, and above 3 miles in breadth at the widest part. It includes the township or liberty of Tunstall Court in Wolstanton parish ; the township of Burslem with the village of Rushton Grange and the hamlet of Sneyd, in Burslem parish ; and the chapelries of Hanley and Lane-End, and the townships of Shelton, Penkhull, Boothen, Fenton-Vivian, Fenton-Culvert, and Longton, in Stoke parish. In this district, the chief seat of the earthenware manufacture of England, familiarly designated ‘the Potteries,’ are the market-towns of Burslem, Hanley, Lane-End, Stoke, and Tunstall Court. The district is of no historical interest ; its importance has arisen from the manufacture of which it is the seat, earthenware. Burslem is described elsewhere.
Hanley is near the centre of the district, about a mile from Stoke. It is united with Shelton into one market-town, the largest in the district. It stands on the south-western slope of a gently rising eminence. Most of the streets have been laid out within the present century ; they are wide and have a brick pavement for foot passengers on each side, and are lighted with gas. There are some spacious and elegant houses, but the generality are smaller and of tolerably uniform height, viz. of two stories. The market-place is large and surrounded by spacious shops ; in it is a pump or fountain, in the form of a Doric pillar of cast-iron, surmounted by a lamp. The market-hall is convenient ; in one corner is the watch-house, in another corner is a two-celled prison or lock-up-house. The church, or rather chapel, at Hanley is a commodious brick building with a tower 100 feet high. A new church has been built in Shelton. There is a neat building for the national school, and a handsome one for a British school. There are several places of worship for different classes of Dissenters ; that for the Methodist New Connection has a large Sunday-school room attached to it, capable of containing 1000 children.
The population of Hanley chapelry and Shelton township in 1831, was 16,388 : 1,444 men were returned as engaged in manufactures ; they were nearly all engaged in the earthenware manufacture, in which they were assisted by their families. There is one banking establishment, and there is a large paper-mill of modern erection. Etruria, a long street of about one hundred and twenty houses, with a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and a large British school, an extensive earthenware manufactory (Wedgwood’s) and a mansion (Etruria Hall), erected by Josiah Wedgwood, the great improver of the earthenware manufacture of the district is in Shelton township, and its population is included above. These are well-supplied markets on Wednesday and Saturday, the latter being the principal ; the tolls, which a few years since produced £700 per annum, are appropriated to the improvement of the town.
Lane-End is at the South-south-east extremity or the district, about three miles from Stoke. It was formerly remarkable for the irregularity with which it was laid out, but the more modern parts are regularly laid out, and built with tolerable uniformity. There are two places of worship of the establishment ; one built, or rather rebuilt, in 1795, the other in 1834 ; several Dissenting or Methodist meeting-houses, and a Catholic chapel ; an English free-school, and a large national school. Lane-End has two market-places : one, with regular shambles and stalls, is used for the weekly market ; the other, with a spacious market-hall, commonly used for public meetings, is appropriated for the yearly fairs. The market tolls are devoted to the improvement of the town. The population of the chapelry of Lane-End, and of the township of Longton, into which the town extends, was, in 1831, 9,608 ; of whom 981 men (besides their families or assistants) were employed in manufactures, almost entirely of earthenware. There is an iron-work for smelting the ironstone found in the neighbourhood. There are two banking establishments. The market is on Saturday. There are several fairs.
Stoke has a number of modern houses, regularly laid out. The streets have their footpaths paved with brick, and are lighted with gas. In the centre of the town is the extensive earthenware manufactory of Messrs. Spode and Co., covering an area of several acres. The town-hall is a neat building, well adapted to its purposes, with an engine and lock-up-house beneath. The church is a modern structure, of Gothic architecture, erected in place of an older one now pulled down : it has a tower 112 feet high. There is a handsome and commodious national school adjoining the churchyard. The population of the township of Penkhull, in which the town stands, was, in 1831, 5,876, of whom 609 men were employed almost entirely in the manufacture of earthenware. The earthenware manufactories of Stoke are not numerous, but are among the most important in the district. The market is on Saturday, and is well supplied.
Tunstall-court has risen during the present century from a mere hamlet of sixty houses. It is on the declivity of a considerable eminence, about four miles north from Newcastle-under-Lyme. It has a new church, built about ten years since, and three Methodist meeting-houses. The spacious market-place was formed in 1815. There are a market and court house, with lock-up cells for offenders. The population of Tunstall-court township in 1831 was 3,673, of whom only 19 men were returned as employed in manufacture, but there was obviously some mistake in the return here. Earthenware and blue tiles are manufactured ; and there are corn-mills and chemical-works. The market is on Saturday.
These are the principal places in the borough, the total population of which, in 1831, was as follows :-
|
Inhabited houses |
Uninhabited houses |
Houses building |
Families |
Population |
Burslem |
2,731 |
94 |
11 |
3,042 |
12,250 |
Rushton Grange |
* |
* |
* |
* |
* |
Sneyd |
170 |
4 |
- |
186 |
963 |
Hanley |
1,321 |
76 |
18 |
1,402 |
7,121 |
Lane-End |
278 |
18 |
- |
299 |
1,488 |
Shelton |
1,840 |
61 |
26 |
1,971 |
9,267 |
Penkhull |
1,071 |
38 |
12 |
1,215 |
5,876 |
Boothen |
21 |
- |
- |
22 |
121 |
Fenton Vivian |
189 |
18 |
- |
222 |
1,002 |
Fenton Culvert |
535 |
54 |
21 |
629 |
2,708 |
Longton |
1,593 |
201 |
7 |
1,815 |
8,120 |
TOTALS |
9,749 |
564 |
95 |
10,803 |
47,916 |
* included in Burslem)
In the borough, or in its immediate neighbourhood, about 4,400 men, with their families, were, in 1831, engaged in the manufacture of earthenware. A number of men are employed in the adjacent coal-works. Coals, marl, and potters’ clay are dug in the neighbourhood. The potters are generally steady men, as attested by the fact that a greater number reside in houses belonging to themselves, purchased by their savings, than in any other place of equal population in England. Many of them rent small plots of ground, on which they raise in rotation crops of potatoes, wheat, and oats ; the straw is used in packing the earthenware. The hazel-rods and coppice-wood of the surrounding district are used in considerable quantity in making crates to pack the earthenware. The Trent and Mersey Canal and the Caldon Canal run through the heart of the Potteries. The Manchester and Birmingham Railway was designed to run through them, but the line has been altered.
The living of Burslem is a rectory, of the clear yearly value of £455, with a glebe-house ; the benefice of the new church at Burslem is a perpetual curacy, of the clear yearly value of £109. The benefice of the new church at Tunstall is a perpetual curacy. The living of Stoke-upon-Trent is a rectory, of the clear yearly value of £2,717, with a glebe-house. The benefices of Hanley, Shelton, Lane-End, and Longton, are perpetual curacies. The clear yearly value of Hanley is £220, and of Lane-End, £154, each with a glebe-house. All these places are in the rural deanery of Newcastle and Stone, in the archdeaconry of Stafford and diocese of Lichfield. There were in the borough, in 1833, besides private day-schools, two infant-schools, with 164 children ; one at Hanley and one at Lane-End ; three national schools, namely, the Hanley and Shelton school, with 215 boys and 156 girls ; the Stoke-upon-Trent school, with 120 boys and 187 girls ; and the Lane-End school, with 103 boys and 64 girls ; a Lancasterian or British school at Shelton, with 150 boys and 100 girls, and a Roman Catholic school in Lane-End, with 90 girls. The national schools are attended by many hundred children in addition on Sundays, and there are many Sunday-schools, some of them very large. There are a literary society at Tunstall, and a mechanics’ institution called the Pottery Mechanics’ Institution. The North Staffordshire Infirmary is in the township of Shelton ; it is a spacious and commodious brick building.
The number of voters on the register for 1835-6 was 1,445 ; for 1839-40, 1,623, showing an increase in four years of 178. The number of qualifying houses (i.e. houses worth £10 a year) in proportion to the population is unusually small, rents being very low, owing to the abundance of building-ground and the cheapness of building materials. The borough returns two members to parliament.
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