What the Potteries Gave to Basketball

The Trenton basketball team 1896-97. Fred Cooper is bottom left with
the ball, his friend Al Bratton is bottom right.

In 1896, Frederick Cooper, a distant American cousin of mine, earned himself a place in the history books through the simple act of accepting a fee. Several years earlier, a dynamic new game called basketball had been invented that was gaining a strong following in the various YMCAs on America's east coast. Fred, already a keen sportsman had like many others quickly warmed to the game, becoming the star player and captain of the highly successful Trenton YMCA team that for the previous three years had dominated the emerging leagues. At first the new game had been played for fun and entertainment, but the groundswell of support soon saw seats being sold for popular teams and inevitably the money trickled back to the players that the crowds wanted to see. The result was that in 1896 Fred was the first to accept payment for a game and in doing so became the world's first professional basketball player.

Though he would make his name in the United States, Fred Cooper was actually born at 21 Bethesda Street, Shelton on 25 March 1874, the fifth of seven children – six boys and one girl – born to Thomas Cooper and Ann, nee Simpson. Fred's father, Thomas, had started out as a working potter but over the years had moved into small scale pottery manufacture. However, in the mid-1880s, in the wake of what was later described in Fred's obituary as 'some business reverses', Thomas and Ann decided to emigrate and join their eldest child, William who was already settled in the States, working at the Greenwood Pottery in Trenton, New Jersey. The Coopers left Britain early in 1886, travelling as steerage passengers (i.e. 3rd class) aboard the SS England, arriving at New York on 27 May 1886, from where they made the relatively short journey south west across the state to Trenton. As it turned out, Thomas would only enjoy his new home in America for a few years, dying in 1891 at the age of 56, but his wife and children settled into their new lives and over time became valued members of the local community.

Trenton, New Jersey, USA

On arriving in the States, Fred and his younger brother Albert, or 'Al' as he became best known, had been enrolled in the Centennial School where they soon got involved in sports and stood out as skilled footballers, a game their father had taught them. Fred especially proved to be an all-round sportsman, also taking up baseball, competitive running and later becoming a fine billiards player and a good bowler. His successes, though were at first eclipsed by his older brother, Arthur, who back in Britain had been such a skilled footballer that in the early to mid 1880s he played for Stoke F.C.'s junior team, Stoke Swifts. Arthur seems to have stayed behind for a year after the rest of the family emigrated, perhaps to help the Swifts in their attempt to win the junior league cup. Once this was over though, in 1887, he too took a ship to the States, but not before being presented with a handsome medallion by his team mates and the club. Once in the States, Arthur's success had continued, and it was not long before he was picked as a member of the All-America soccer team.

While his brother's career blossomed, Fred left school and found work as a sanitary-ware presser at one of Trenton's pot banks, a job he would do for the better part of three decades. He continued to pursue his love of sport in his spare time through the local YMCA, which acted as a youth club for boys and young men of religious families like the Coopers. Here he found a kindred spirit in another keen footballer named Al Bratton, with whom he seems to have formed a winning partnership, not only on the football pitch, but also when the two of them decided to try their hand at the new game of basketball that was sweeping through the YMCA branches. Only a few years had passed since Canadian-born training instructor James Naismith had dreamt up the indoor game to placate a group of YMCA trainees at the School for Christian Workers, Springfield, Massachusetts, who had been chafing at their inactivity during the long winter months. Though rough-hewn at first, with early games resembling pitched battles between oversized teams, basketball proved an immediate hit and when Naismith published an article on the game it was quickly taken up by YMCA branches along America's east coast. Soon, matches were drawing sizeable crowds and more and more teams sprang up, one of which was Trenton YMCA.

Fred Cooper and Al Bratton first joined the Trenton YMCA basketball team for the 1893-94 season and had an immediate and lasting impact on how the game was played. In those early days, basketball was a game of individual dribblers working their way through the opposition before attempting a shot at the basket, a method that favoured heavy-set players who could push their way through the field. According to one of basketball's early chroniclers, Cooper and Bratton changed this, creating a more fluid game by drawing on their footballing skills to develop a system of short, swift passes between them on the run, a style of play that completely unbalanced opposing teams.

'The Trenton system of passing was definite. It meant to carry the ball to the opponent's basket in order that a goal might be scored, and time and again I have seen Cooper and Bratton in those early days, pass the ball back and forth between them – no one else touching it – and score against all the efforts of the entire opposing team. I have seen them do this trick away from home and witnessed the spectators rise en masse and cheer the brilliant exhibition in spite of the fact that it was being done by invading players.'

For the next three seasons, the Trenton YMCA dominated the game in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania by which time Fred was the team captain and unofficial coach. Despite his refinements to the game, rough play characterised basketball in those free-wheeling and largely unregulated years, with physical injuries being an all too common feature of play, both on and off the court. Not only was there brawling between players, but partisan crowds took whatever opportunities came their way to try and injure or discomfort the rival team and as a result fighting between players and spectators was not unusual. Though the YMCA had quickly lauded Naismith's new game for promoting a useful spirit of 'muscular Christianity' - a healthy body breeding a healthy mind - the rough-housing and unsportsmanlike behaviour drew the Association's displeasure and increasingly basketball teams deserted the YMCA gyms, or were ousted by outraged officials and had to find other venues to play in.

Warren Street, Trenton, with the Masonic Temple nearest the camera.

Such seems to have been the case at the Trenton YMCA. Unspecified 'trouble in the gymnasium', followed by a string of disagreements between the branch secretary and the YMCA team saw the basketball players shifting their base to the Masonic Temple, a large building in downtown Trenton. Here the team made use of the large reception room on the top floor, where a 12 feet high mesh fence with gates at either end was built enclosing the court. This 'cage' was a new innovation, built to stop the ball going out of play so readily and prevent some of the troubles caused by resultant clashes with spectators. The Trenton team were the first to employ this device and though its use eventually fell out of favour, its early employment coined the term 'cager' as a snappy way to refer to a basketball player, a term that is apparently still in use today.

It was in this cage that Fred Cooper and his team mates made history by playing what is presumed to be the first professional basketball game on 7 November 1896, against Brooklyn YMCA. The game had been advertised in a local paper three days earlier (another first) and provisions were made for a sizeable crowd, raised seating being built around the court. Seats were priced at 25c, standing room cost 15c. Nor would the organisers be disappointed by the turn out, 'a large and fashionable audience' of 700 turning up to watch.

The Trenton team came out smartly dressed in red sleeveless tops, black knickerbockers and stockings and white ankle shoes. There were seven in each team, two forwards, a centre, two side centres and two defenders. This was before the days of the tall men in basketball, all of them being average sized, Fred himself was only 5 feet, 7 inches tall. In accordance with the practice of the time, the home team supplied the referee and the visitors chose the umpire.

The game started with seven minutes of 'fierce playing' before Newt Bugbee, one of Trenton's side centres scored the first goal. Fred did not disappoint either, leading the scoring by gaining six points for three baskets, while a player named Simonson scored Brooklyn's only point with a free throw three minutes before the game finished. Trenton's team played the full 40 minutes, while Brooklyn had one substitution. The final score was a 16-1 victory for Trenton.

Following the game, Trenton's manager hosted a supper for both teams at the Alhambra Restaurant, where the Trenton players received their historic payment. There has been some disputing the amount actually paid to the players after the various expenses were deducted, but the accepted version of events was that quoted in Fred's obituary in 1955. 'All the players collected $15  each, but Fred Cooper was the captain and manager (sic) and was paid off first. Thus he became the first professional basketball player in the world. He was proud of this distinction all his life.'

Many versions of the story add that Fred as the captain was also paid a dollar more than his compatriots, which if true also made him the game's first highest paid player.

As they had with the new swift style of play and Trenton's 'cage', other teams quickly followed Trenton down the professional route. This in turn led to the formation in 1898 of the first professional league, the National Basketball League, which Trenton under Fred Cooper's captaincy promptly dominated, winning the first two NBL titles. By this time the team had been joined by Fred's younger brother, Albert. Tall and handsome and as skilled as his brother, Al Cooper proved to be an accomplished goal scorer and easily the best player in the new league.

Despite their successes, during the first few NBL seasons, Fred was growing disillusioned with the Trenton team. His brother Al and Harry Stout, Trenton's top scorer did not get along, while the team's co-owners had also had a falling out. Keen for a fresh start, at the beginning of the 1900-1901 season, he quit the Trenton squad to coach a new team in nearby Burlington. The result, though, was embarrassing. Though Fred was an excellent coach, his new team lacked Trenton's pool of of talented players, the result being that Burlington lost its first eight games before Fred gave up. He was immediately snapped up to coach the Bristol team, before going on to coach at Princeton University between 1904-1906. It was not until 1910 that Fred returned to coach the struggling Trenton Eastern Basketball League team and did so successfully, winning the EBL title the following year. He was replaced as the coach the next year, but returned to coach Trenton one more time ten years later. His last stint as a team coach was at Rider College in the 1920s.

Fred and Catherine and their eldest children
Thomas and Mabel.
Photo courtesy of Susan Corrigan.

Alongside his sporting career, Fred enjoyed a happy family and social life. In 1901, he had married Catherine Carr and the couple had three children. Like his siblings he was an active member of the Trenton community, becoming in time a church elder, and a member of various local and national patriotic orders and Masonic lodges. As noted earlier he had worked for many years as a sanitary-ware presser at the Enterprise Pottery, which generously allowed him time off for his coaching duties, but he quit his job in 1922, when on the strength of his sporting career, he was offered a position as a director of local sports grounds, a posting that eventually led to him becoming head of the city recreation department.

Fred Cooper died in January 1955 at the age of 80, being buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Trenton. The local paper gave him a fulsome obituary, while the National Basketball Association,  heir to the early leagues that Fred and others had helped to forge, did not forget its pioneering sportsman. In February 1955, the NBA presented the city of Trenton with a bronze plaque in honour of Fred and his groundbreaking professional match, which was placed on the site of Trenton's old Masonic Temple.

The memorial plaque to the first
professional match.
Photo courtesy of Grace Cooper

Reference: Robert W. Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years (New York, 1990) pp. 32-37.  Obituary, Trenton Evening Times, 7 January 1955. 

Family information courtesy of Grace Cooper and Susan Corrigan.

Website: Pro Basketball Encyclopedia.

Am I Not a Man and a Brother?

By the late 1700s, slavery, most notably the trade in African slaves, was being increasingly seen by many in Britain as a great moral evil. Abolitionist pamphlets and literature distributed in taverns, coffee houses, assembly rooms, reading societies and private houses up and down the country brought home to the people of Britain the atrocities committed by the Atlantic slave trade, and attacked the entrenched attitudes and vicious practices of slave owners and the greed of the other moneyed interests that thrived on this inhuman traffic.

The anti-slavery movement had originated with non-conformist groups in Europe and America in the late 1600s. Quakers and other dissenters objected to slavery on both moral and religious grounds, but because of their unorthodox beliefs they were regarded as social outsiders and barred from public office and as a result their views were largely ignored save by their fellow dissenters. The movement had grown slowly in Britain during the 18th century, but it finally found a voice and a leader in 1786, when Thomas Clarkson published  An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. This proved to be a rallying cry for the movement, bringing Clarkson into contact with other like-minded men and the next year he and eleven others formed the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This Committee would become a Society as it grew and would coordinate the Parliamentary campaign led by MP William Wilberforce that resulted in the end of the international trade in African slaves. That eventual success was still a couple of decades away, but the Committee made a good start, not only by being led by men of intelligence and zeal, but also by utilising what could be considered an early example of product branding, namely an easy-to-recognise logo, mass-produced by leading Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood.

Josiah Wedgwood.

Josiah Wedgwood like many abolitionists was a non-conformist, being brought up as a Unitarian. He was not an immediate recruit to the cause, his early life being devoted to setting himself up as a potter and businessman. However, he was always very keenly interested in the social movements of his time and their consequences for society at large. This found its way into his paternal attitude towards his workers, whom he housed in the new model estate of Etruria that he built around his factory, and can be seen in the interest he took in the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolution. His involvement in the anti-slavery movement, though, seems to have come about through the influence of his business partner Thomas Bentley. Bentley had worked as a merchant in Liverpool, a circumstance that might normally have made him a supporter of slavery, but he was firmly opposed to the trade and unlike the other merchants refused to go and meet the slave ships when they came into port. Doubtless Bentley's feelings on the matter influenced Wedgwood in this just as his knowledge of arts and science had done earlier in their friendship. Certainly, following Bentley's death in 1780, Wedgwood subscribed to all the tracts and pamphlets concerning the abolition of the slave trade and used his influence to do all that he could to help the cause.

Wedgwood became friends with Thomas Clarkson and in 1787 he joined the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade shortly after it was set up. As an experienced businessman  Wedgwood would prove to be a valuable asset in the Committee's arsenal. He understood the value of publicity - he afterall, was the man who had pioneered the idea of the money back guarantee and the benefits of the 'By Appointment' status of Royal patronage - and he now came to the Committee with a brilliant idea to help promote their cause. Better still, he had the means to bring his plan to fruition and was willing to pay for it out of his own pocket.

Wedgwood proposed producing a classically inspired oval cameo based on the seal of the Committee. This showed a kneeling African slave in chains, imploring mercy or pity, with the motto 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' The idea appealed to the Committee and Wedgwood immediately got one of his best craftsmen, William Hackwood, to first model and then prepare for production what became known as the slave medallion. Hackwood used Wedgwood's black jasper to represent the supplicant slave, set against a white or cream background in the same ceramic body, with the motto moulded in relief above and partly around the figure. Then, once the working moulds had been made, the medallion went into production. Thousands were made and Wedgwood immediately began sending them out - again out of his own pocket - to interested parties. Thomas Clarkson, writing years later, remembered receiving his first batch and recalled the instant and telling popularity the slave medallion enjoyed.

'Mr Wedgwood made a liberal donation of these, when finished, among his friends. I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself. They, to whom they were sent, did not lay them up in their cabinets, but gave them away likewise. They were soon, like The Negro’s Complaint, in different parts of the kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.'

Most of the medallions were distributed via the Committee, but Wedgwood sent out many more himself, most notably in 1788 when he sent a package of the cameos across the Atlantic to Benjamin Franklin, an old acquaintance from the Lunar Society and at that time the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Wedgwood wrote 'It gives me great pleasure to be embarked on this occasion in the same great and good cause with you and I ardently hope for the final completion of our wishes.' Franklin replied, 'I am persuaded [the medallion] may have an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet in procuring favour to those oppressed people.' Sadly for both, neither Franklin nor Wedgwood would live long enough to see those wishes fulfilled.

Wedgwood continued to actively support the anti-slavery movement right up to his death in early 1795. He bought shares in a company set up to form a colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone; befriended and advised William Wilberforce who would lead the parliamentary fight against slavery; and he paid for the printing and distribution of an anti-slavery pamphlet that the Committee produced. Offering to pay the cost for the production of a woodcut block, he advised them to head their pamphlet not with the advertisement they had originally planned, but with the woodcut, a reproduction of the same image of the kneeling slave that had inspired his own ceramic contribution to the cause.

Reference: Thomas Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. II (1807)

Website: Wedgwood Museum

A Soldier of the US Cavalry

John Livesley's grave in Hanley Cemetery.

In 1997, Hugh Troth of Ohio, published a tribute to his grandfather, The Life and Times of Isma Troth. Isma Troth had served as a soldier in the American Civil War and he wrote several letters charting his friendship with a fellow soldier named John Livesley whom he met in hospital when he was there recovering from his wounds. Troth's account indicated that Livesley came from Potteries and using biographical information from this book and information from other social archives, local researchers were able to piece together the life of this otherwise forgotten local who had somehow got himself involved in a foreign war.

John Livesley was born in Shelton on 12 October 1838, the son of  pottery engraver and journeyman William Livesley and Sarah nee Brundrett. He enjoyed a privileged upbringing as his father was an increasingly prosperous man, who by 1851 had opened his own pottery and also ran a grocery business, all together employing 46 men, 23 women, 20 boys and 25 girls. As a result of his family's wealth, John enjoyed a good education, attending a boy's boarding school run by James and Harriet Grocott at Wilton House, Wrinehill near Betley on the Staffordshire border.

As the family business grew, William Livesley entered into partnership with one Edwin Powell, and his name then regularly appeared in the local press, often for his philanthropy and support for public works and by the mid-1850s, John Livesley or J. Livesley likewise puts in a few appearances, attending performances or contributing money for some good cause supported by his father. But by 1861 census John had disappeared from the area.

In fact, he had left the country and crossed the Atlantic to the United States, sailing in September 1860 aboard the RMS Persia to New York in company with 40 year old James Carr, a native of Hanley who two decades earlier had emigrated to the States and had established a successful pottery in New York. Both men give their occupation as 'potter' in the ship's passenger list and it is not unreasonable to suppose that John Livesley, the son of a successful Hanley manufacturer had gone over with John Carr to work in his growing firm.

Yet, it was a bad time to be travelling to the USA as growing tensions between the northern and southern states over the expansion of slavery, came to a head the following year. The southern slave-owning states split from the Union, forming a Confederacy, an act that pushed the country into a bloody civil war.

Was John Livesley permanently settled in the States at this time, resisting the urge to join in the conflict, or just an occasional visitor to the country, criss-crossing the Atlantic and thus avoiding becoming involved? It is hard to say, but he was certainly in New York on 23 January 1864 when he was enlisted as a private in L Company 6th Regiment New York Cavalry of the Union army. Details on his enlistment are unclear, but suggestions have been made that he was drunk at the time, a not unlikely hypothesis as John seems to have had a habit of drinking to excess when he found himself in like-minded company. This is backed up by records that show that he was in hospital for the first week of his service due to "delirium". He also seems to have enlisted under an assumed name, the enlistment records for John Livesley being struck through and replaced with the name 'John Lindsley'. The records note that he was born in England, worked as a potter and gave a physical description: 'gray eyes, brown hair, light complexion, 5 feet 8½ inches in height'. His term of enlistment was given to be three years.

His new home, the 6th New York Cavalry, also known as the 2nd Ira Harris Guard, was a veteran unit, it had been formed at the outbreak of the Civil War and seen much service. Only a few months earlier it had taken part in the Battle of Gettysburg and since then played its part in numerous smaller actions taken on by the Army of the Potomac to which it belonged. With the onset of winter though it had gone into cantonments and when John Livesley enlisted, was employed in guarding the country between the Union lines and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

US and Confederate cavalry in action at the Battle of Trevilian Station in 1864.

On 3 May 1864, the regiment – now with Livesley, or rather 'Lindsley' in its ranks - returned to action, crossing the Rapidan river and taking part in the Wilderness campaign under General Grant. The regiment was part of the Cavalry Corps, and played a role in all the operations undertaken by the corps commander General Sheridan, notably in his famous raid around the Confederate capital of Richmond. At the battle of Yellow Tavern on 11 May 1864, the 6th New York Cavalry charged down the Brook Pike and went into and entered the line of the first defences about Richmond, being the first Union regiment to get so close to the city. The regiment then saw action in the Battle of Trevilian Station, and in numerous smaller actions and it was probably during one of the latter in August 1864 that John Livesley was badly wounded eight months after joining up. 

Carried from the front and admitted to the USA Post Hospital, Bolivar Heights, Harper's Ferry on 20 August with gunshot wounds, Livesley was a wreck and had to have an arm and a leg amputated. Records show that aside from his physical injuries, he like many in the army was also suffering from chronic diarrhoea, but also that he was quickly transferred further from the seat of war, first to the Field Hospital at Sandy Hook, Maryland and finally to Rulison USA General Hospital at Annapolis Junction, Maryland on the road between Washington and Baltimore. Confined to a wheelchair, it was during his long convalescence here that he met Isma Troth, a former prisoner of war at the infamous Andersonville prison, who now worked as a clerk at the hospital, often writing letters home for the wounded, one of them being John Livesley whom he first met shortly after his arrival there. The two men developed a close friendship and Livesley's father offered to pay for the two of them to come to England when they were discharged. The war effectively ended in April 1865 and John was mustered out of the Union army on 24 May 1865 whilst still at Annapolis Junction. 

Cheered by the thought of making a new life for himself, Troth was keen to go to Britain, noting that his friend's family were influential and he might secure a good position there, but he had some major misgivings about Livesley's drinking habits. In a letter written in June that year, Mr Troth wrote: 'Mr Livesley is a good, kind friend of mine and is an honest, intelligent man - but he sometimes drinks'  He noted that he had known Livesley for about a year and that the man was not a regular drinker and he never drank when they went places, but on a couple of occasions he had gone out with soldiers who did drink and had come home in quite a state. Once he went with them to a neighbouring village and came back the worse for wear, and on being mustered out of the army he had gone out 'with some fast boys' to celebrate his release and had come back drunk, much to Troth's disgust. After talking of their plans to travel to Britain, Isma said: 'If my friend associates and drinks with these rough characters I shall not go with him, for I cannot place any confidence in a drunkard.' Troth was arguably being rather hard on his friend who from his account comes across more as a moderate drinker who occasionally let himself go, rather than an out-and-out alcoholic.

Despite these problems, the two friends did indeed take passage to Britain and Isma spent a year in England before travelling home. John returned to Stoke-on-Trent and was soon set up as a grocer in Lichfield Street, in Hanley, marrying a local girl Ellen Twigg from Bucknall on 18 June 1867. But tragically John Livesley died just four months later, on 23 October 1867, aged 29, having possibly never recovered from his wartime injuries.

Despite his father's wealth John was buried in an unmarked grave in Hanley Cemetery. However, when he learned of his grandfather’s link with John Livesley, Hugh Troth endeavoured to see John’s service recognised and in 1997 contacted the United States Government to obtain a bronze plaque, recognising Private John Livesley's service during the American Civil War. In 2003, the plaque was put on his burial spot, being unveiled by Mr Troth. 

Reference: Hugh Isma Troth, The Life and Times of Isma Troth (1997)

Characteristics of the Working Population

Published in 1847 by Charles Knight, The Land We Live In, was ostensibly a travel guide written for those adventurous souls who wished to make use of the new railways which were springing up all over Britain. One chapter was dedicated to 'The Staffordshire Potteries' and as well as containing descriptions of the six towns, it also gave an interesting pen-portrait of the ordinary people of the district.

'Whoever wishes to see the characteristics of the working population of a manufacturing district, should watch for the hour when all hands troop out to dinner, There is sure to be a something which an observant eye can catch ... If at the Potteries, he will observe that all the world ... wear little, natty, gray, hemispherical hats or caps - not the broad-brims which have recently had a season of favour among cricketers and steam-boat tourists, but having a brim curled up compactly all, round. These caps are made of coarse gray felt; and they form an extensive article of manufacture in the neighbouring town of Newcastle; for they are worn almost universally by the potters, men and boys, while at work and the feminine workers do not altogether reject then; The caps have the double reputation of being 'nice and warm' in winter, and 'nice and cool' in summer. If we further look at the groups of potters, while returning homewards to dinner, we can hardly fail to see that they are a whiteybrown race, so far as dress is concerned; the pottery materials are mostly of a light colour, and they leave their impress both on skin and on clothes...

As to the streets in which the operatives live, a passer-by would find it difficult to distinguish one house from another. They are like casts taken from the same mould. All are about of equal height, and have an equal number of windows; all the windows are decked with flowers, placed in pots which would shame our London flower-pots; all the street-doors open into the best parlours; and all the best parlours (or so many of them, that we feel tempted to jump to a conclusion as to the rest) have mahogany chests of drawers. It appears that the potters have a very commendable bit of pride concerning this article of furniture; and there can be little doubt that the treasures stored away in such receptacles often comprise no small amount of display and finery for the Sunday's wear. But we are not entitled to peep into the drawers; so will pass on.

While speaking of the potters and their houses we may as well mention that they have the reputation of having more freeholds in their possession than any other class of operatives in this country. Among the more prudent men the earnings are large enough, in a cheap county, to permit them to lay by sufficient for the purchase of a small freehold dwelling; and it is said that near Burslem there is a row or street of houses consisting entirely of workmen's freeholds, this does not appear to be the result of any Building Society, Land Society, or Socialist scheme, but to spring from individual acts of prudence - so much the better. That some potters are reckless and poor, and some poor without being reckless, may well be imagined. We remember seeing a handbill emanating from the " Handlers' and Flat and Hollow Ware Pressers' Surplus Labour Society (a name almost as long as Boz's "Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company"), in which the grievances of the members were to be remedied by a certain labour-scheme - and the Reports of the "Children's Employment Commissioners" showed that there is much more squalor and more ignorance than there ought to be where so large an amount of wages is distributed every week; but we incline to think that the potters, as a class, would rank as high as most English operatives in intelligence and in comfort. Some of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Government Commissioner presented rather a gloomy picture of the people and their condition; while others felt that they could venture to take a more cheerful view of the state of things. One of them, a manager or foreman, said: " I do not think that there is a more respectable set of mechanics in England. They are great politicians ; for it is the practice, when the newspapers arrive, for one amongst them to seat himself in the middle of the room, and read aloud for twenty minutes; he is then relieved by another, and returns to his work." Here follows, however, rather an ugly spot -" If it happens that, in his turn, one of the persons cannot read, his place is taken by another and he works for him." There is a Potters' Emigration Society, whose funds have been devoted to the purchase of an estate at Wisconsin, in the United States of America, whither many of the potters have emigrated and it is said, prospered.'

Reference: Charles Knight (publisher) The Land We Live In, London, 1847