Free Everyman's England by Victor Canning Page A

mild-mannered, undistinguished man, but in that moment I realised that it was not just clay he was handling, but vivid, living stuff without which his life would be nothing, and as he fingered it there was a light in his eyes which probably few other things in this world could evoke. I was suddenly awed before him, as we must all be awed before a craftsman. In that moment, as I stood there watching the long line of clay ooze from the mixing machine, I regretted that I had not been born in the Potteries and become a potter. Here was a man who worked with his hands, knew a craft shared by a comparative few and one that was as old as mankind. He had every right to be arrogant, to scorn me and the rest of the world, I felt. As he stood there he represented, as faithfully as anyone I have ever met and with a beauty that was impossible to forget, the dignity of labour and the pride which comes from having a craft.
    And all around there were others who felt the same, who shared a like spirit. To the people of the Potteries clay is not something from which they make a living, it is their life. The girls working in the pot-banks, whether they do no more than carry long tray-fulls of cups from the drying-rooms to the kilns, or paint those coloured bands round the plates, or stick transfers on the cheaper china, all seem to have this feeling for the trade they own, a trade as old as any in the world; and the men and boys all have a joy in their work which comes from a heritage of craftsmanship. When I had first seen them at night, dressed-up, laughing and jostling in picture queues, out to enjoy themselves, I had not guessed at their pride, but when I saw them in that pot-bank I should have had to have been imperceptive to have missed it.
    The history of the Potteries is a history of individuals. The Dutch brothers, Elers, are the first in the line of individuals who raised the craft from an unimportant occupation of a few at Burslem, the mother of the Potteries, to the position of a major industry. About 1690 these brothers discovered a vein of clay near Bradwell Wood from which they produced a fine red stoneware and, most important, they introduced into the industry the secret of making the famous salt-glazed stoneware. So jealous were they of this secret that it is said, with what truth you must judge for yourself, that the two brothers employed none but half-wits in their pot-banks so that they might not discover the secret or communicate it to other people, and every day – as though they were not sure even of their half wits – all the workmen were searched before they left the factory.
    And after the Elers brothers came Josiah Wedgwood who, as the inscription on his monument reads: ‘…converted a rude and inconsiderable manufactory into an elegant art and an important part of national commerce.’
    Josiah Wedgwood’s chief genius lay in his love of experiments. Born in the Potteries of a family which had for years been engaged in the trade, after he had served his apprenticeship with his brother, Thomas, he was refused a partnership because of his unorthodox experiments. Josiah, like so many other famous inventors, was too progressive for the men of his own age. Yet it is of him that most people think when pottery is mentioned, and when you are in the Potteries you will hardly fail to miss Etruria, the village and factory which he founded for the manufacture of cream-coloured earthenwares, black basaltes and jasper ware, all of which he introduced or improved by his experiments. He had that high courage which comes from faith, and from his faith he helped to build one of the greatest and most interesting industries in the world.
    Anyone in the Potteries, I found, can tell you about the Wedgwood family and the two Ralph Woods, who made the sometimes crude, but always humorous, Staffordshire figures. Yet there was one name which produced no response from quite a lot of people. Ask a Potteries man or woman