h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hello - I am working on some linked entries about the Staffordshire Potteries,

I would like some help from the outset, and wonder if anyone would be willing to advise me please?

Here is an outline of the various separate articles. Originally I thought I could write just one, simple factual account - but the research I have been doing has revealed so much, and not very much has been written about it since the 1960s.


History of the Staffordshire Potteries

a) Why the Potteries developed where they did and early history, including canals and beam engines, coal pits, clay mines.
b) How a Pottery manufactory functioned ( all the various roles etc)
especial mention of the bottle oven
c) What exactly is bone china - and porcelain and earthenware etc
d) China Flowermaking - a lost art
e) The rise of the Unions within the Potteries, riots, deportations, workhouses etc -
f) The Clean Air Act and its effect on The Potteries
g) Various notable family firms, Spode, Minton, Copeland, Wedgwood, Doulton
h) Collecting English China
i) oh there will be other things for sure...


Firstly, I need to know where to start?

It's a very tenuous link, but I touched on it with the Frisian Tea Ceremony. In the 17th Century, people were beginning to travel - and bring back tea from China. They had seen the white china being used in China and wanted to reproduce it at home. However, it was difficult to get the stuff really white.

Check out the origins of the Continental potteries in Meissen and Delft to see if they coincide.

Thanks Trillian! I was rather hoping someone would advise me on the workings ( or not as it seems so far to appear) of the h2g2 University.


Do you know how it is supposed to function?

Not really. I'm trying to find out myself, actually. I thought the University had closed down ages ago and now I discover it still exists.

Perhaps we would benefit from a joint approach of someone who might know. Who do you reckon?

Are you considering a University project?

I can't add any local knowledge, I'm afraid, but if you need help researching any specific facts then let me know and I'll be happy to help.


I think this is a very big task you're taking on. I'd seriously consider writing just one or two, put them into Peer Review and see how they go - you can always try to combine them into a Uni project later.


Icy

I really appreciate your reply Icy!

I realised just how big a task this is once I had started researching for just one tiny article - or so I thought. There is so much that I couldn't turn it into one enormous thing, so I thought it would be better as a Uni project.

If it is possible to turn linked articles into a Uni project retrospectively this would make my life a lot easier


btw in case you didn't know, I come from a family of Staffordshire potters - so it is my own history in a way, which is why I am happy to do it justice. The local Museum and Archives have great sources and many local places where I can get verbatim material.

I will certainly take you up on your kind offer to help me out, should I need it. At the moment though I am overwhelmed with facts and texts, and just needed to know that I can start.

I work in Moorcroft Pottery- its been going for over 100 years. Don't know too much about the Pot's deep history but most of my mothers family have worked on the Pots at some time or other, so if theres owt specific you need to know just ask.

Brilliant or what! I am so pleased to hear from you.

Do you think it is a good idea to try and write about the Potteries?


I'd love some up to date info from you when you have the time.

It's funny having someone 'on the doorstep' as it were, mostly I seem to have conversations with people from the other side of the world.




Perhaps when would be the interested in reading what I have written, when it is in a draft form? Then if it doesn't make sense, you could tell me

ooh I'm dead chuffed!!

Yeah deffo- there's certainly enough to write about.. I would like to find out more about the pottery families- they all seem like an inventive lot! I'm sure it was one of the Wedgewood family who discovered using silver nitrate in photography.

You might be interested in taking a drive down Waterloo Road in Burslem (I'd keep moving, though). Apparently some of the larger three storey houses were owned by pottery management of the day... I bet the road was a sight to behold in the Pots Golden Age!

Absolutely true, I was waiting in traffic there just a week or so ago, and thinking exactly the same thing. If it was any other city in the country, those houses would have been bought up and 'gentrified', sadly they mostly seem to be decaying in the same way as a lot of the city has.


Did you know that child labour was still legal in the Potteries, long after it had been stopped in the cotton mills?

lol I think I have most of the archive material from the library in my room here.

I think it would be great to have some entries on the history of the Potteries. I didn't know anything about them until I moved to the area, and to be honest, I still don't know that much...

its looking more positive!

thanks Otto!

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'The h2g2 University' to 'Faculty of Social Sciences'.

To Geography Department.

Hope you don't mind me moving it over here - did anything come of this? All I've found (other than an introduction to Staffordshire) is:
A51243004 The Potteries, Stoke on Trent, (1st draft)

<BB<

Nope - I did a lot of reading, but it turned into a huge task, bigger than I'd originally thought.

If life ever gets boring I may take it up again. It would certainly be a worthwhile venture. Perhaps if I wrote some small Entry on this topic it might convince me to have a go.