Potters On The Edge

Pots were being made for the glass industry in the Brettell Lane area of the Black Country by the 17^th century. In “The Natural History of Staffordshire” in 1686, Robert Plot wrote that Amblecote had by far the most preferable clay and that that the best pots for manufacturing glass were made from Amblecote clay. He noted the number of glass houses in the area.  

Dudley’s historic maps for the middle of the 18^th century show that Brettell Lane was already moderately industrialised by 1750 with glass cones dotting the landscape that attracted artisans from as far as France and Italy to this leading centre of glass making.

Ralph Edge, my 6x great grandfather, was a potter whose pottery was situated on Brettell Lane in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries close to the industrial highway of the Stourbridge Canal, completed in 1779,  

Ralph married Jane Shaw in Kingswinford on 17 January 1757. The couple had six known children:

John (1760) my 5x great grandfather

Elizabeth (1763)

Samuel (1766)

Jane (1770)

Ralph (1772)

Timothy (1776).

Ralph Edge died in 1806 and was buried in Brierley Hill on 5 March. According to burial records, he was 72 years old.

He left a Will that was proved at Lichfield in August of the same year:

Ralph Edge late of the parish of Kingswinford Staffordshire. Potter.

Executors: Samuel Edge of the same X Peter Shaw of Hales Owen, Salop

He gives to his executors upon trust all his household furniture, goods, personal estate & effects to sell and dispose of the same & pay and divise the same

John Edge son

Samuel Edge son

Ralph Edge son

Timothy Edge son

Elizabeth Chapman daughter

Jane Collins daughter

Equally share and share alike. Subject to the payment of some legacies of 5£ each unto his grandchildren.

Ralph was evidently a man of some means with a successful pottery business. The bequest of £5 to each of his grandchildren alone would represent several thousand pounds today.

His son, Samuel Edge, is recorded as a potter as one of the purchasers of the King Street building for the Independent Chapel in Dudley in 1788. After his father’s death, he was listed as a black earthenware and stone potter on Brettell Lane in Pigot’s directory of 1818.

Earthenware is made from clay that can be fired at low temperatures. It remains porous, is glazed and then fired for a second time. Stoneware is fired at a higher temperature and glazed for decorative purposes. So, the Edge pottery works produced household products such as tableware rather than pots for the glass industry.

Samuel Edge’s pottery and land are depicted on William Fowler’s 1822 map of Kingswinford. He lived in a house and property on the east bank of the canal (1027) and ran the pottery on the west bank on either side of Brettell Lane (1028 & 362). He also rented a barn and land opposite his house across Brettell Lane (441). Some time that year Samuel must have built the Wellington Arms on his land (1024) where he was licensee from 1822 to 1829.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly when the pottery works on Brettell Lane ceased to exist but the number of potters residing on the upper part of Brettell Lane declined on the census returns between 1851 and 1871. Sixteen potters were recorded in 1851, five of whom were Ralph Edge’s descendants. In 1861, there were just two people recorded as working in a pottery and three in 1871. One of these, a John Robinson from Deptford, was designated as a pot maker for the glass industry rather than an earthenware potter.

Deeds at Dudley Archives dated 1861 to 1874 confirm that the Edge pottery had ceased to exist:

Thomas Webb of Dennis, pa. Oldswinford, esq of houses, outbuildings and pleck (= fallow or wasteland) of land at Brettell Lane, late occ: Ralph Edge then Samuel Edge, now taken down.

The County Advertiser in April 1865 recorded the following earthenware potteries (for household and chemical purposes) in Kingswinford. The Edge pottery is not mentioned:

Mr W S Hodnett, Brettell Lane with 69 employees (established in the 1760s)

Mr James Green, Brettell Lane with 12 employees (established 1800)

Mr Thomas Meese, Brettell Lane with 18 employees (established 1834)

Mr George Carder, The Leys Pottery, Brockmoor with 17 employees (established 1850)

Mr Thomas White, the Delph Pottery with 10 employees (established 1780)

Mr Thomas Wassell, Moor Lane with 4-5 employees.

The pottery works of Francis Smith & Sons was located on the lower bank of the canal next to the Edge pottery on the 1822 map of Kingswinford (363). Francis Smith & Sons subsequently became Thomas Smith and Co and then Smith and Hodnett. By 1865, William Hodnett owned the largest pottery in the area. “Hodnett’s Pot” was a huge domed structure and a landmark for miles around. Sadly, no photographs or drawings of this impressive dome exist. It was demolished in 1903 as it was in disrepair and considered unsafe. At the time, the local press commented that domestic pottery was no longer made in the area.

Thomas Meese has a link to the Edge family. Ralph’s son John married Sarah Newman. Their eldest daughter, my 4x great grandmother Susannah, married Frederick Skidmore. Frederick was a coal miner as were his brothers and father but his youngest sister, Esther Skidmore, married John Barnbrook who established Silver End Pottery in the early years of the 19^th century. Many buildings at Silver End survived until the early 21^st century when they were demolished despite the fact that the kiln was still standing and locally listed.

Esther managed Silver End Pottery after the death of her husband in 1839. Her son–in-law, Thomas Meese took over the business until his death in 1882 when he bequeathed it to his son-in-law, John Jeavons. Silver End Pottery had ceased to exist as a pottery works by the 1930s when an engineering works occupied the site.

The University of Birmingham researched the site of Silver End Pottery before demolition and published a report in 2005. This report stated that:

The significance of the kiln at Silver End is that it was neither a glass cone nor a beehive kiln, and appeared to be much more akin to the bottle kilns that gave The Potteries in Staffordshire its characteristic skyline.

 A speculation here could be that Ralph Edge introduced or contributed to the introduction of manufacturing methods known in The Potteries to the Black Country.

Ralph Edge was probably the Ralph Edge born to Ralph Edge and Mary Hammersley at Lane Delph in Fenton, one of the settlements in The Potteries that later made up the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

Delph is a middle English word meaning ditch, trench or dig. Lane Delph is a confusing name as there is a Delph very near to Ralph Edge’s pottery in the Black Country. This Delph was once called Black Delph and most contribute the naming of the Delph to the mining of coal. There is much evidence of this. My great great grandfather, William Skidmore, was a coal miner born on the Delph.

Lane Delph (Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent) could refer to coal and/or clay mining, both of which were significant industries in the Potteries. However, Delphware or Delftware also refers to a style of pottery originating from the Dutch town of Delf, which got its name from the canal running through Delf, essentially a ditch. So, that is probably the explanation for the naming of Lane Delph, a centre of pottery. Steve Birks’ excellent website www.thepotteries.org records that Lane Delph was indeed called Lane Delf and Lane Delft by different manufacturers and that Dutch potters migrated to the area.

Potteries existed at Lane Delph at the beginning of the 18^th century and Josiah Spode, founder of Spode pottery, was born there in 1733.  So, Lane Delph is a place where Ralph Edge could have been born into a community of potters where he learnt the skills of pottery making. Edge and Hammersley are both names that were long associated with the pottery industry.

Steve Birks lists:

Ralph is not a common name in the Black Country but ubiquitous in the Potteries.

Why would a young Ralph Edge marry and establish a business in the Black Country? This can only be open to guesswork but there could have been a number of contributory factors. Maybe, trade was being conducted between the Black Country so that potters in the Potteries began to hear that good quality clay was being mined in Amblecote, an interesting location for establishing a pottery outside the Potteries away from competition. Another possibility is that a market for household products was emerging as the population grew rapidly in the Black Country and there was little or no competition for locally manufactured stone and earthenware pottery. Possibly, Ralph met his wife Jane Shaw through business and trading connections. There is some sketchy evidence that Jane Shaw’s family may also have originated in the Potteries.

Ralph’s youngest son, Timothy, married Martha Holland born in Burslem (Stoke-on-Trent) to the potter, Thomas Holland. After their marriage, Timothy and Martha lived and raised their family in Burslem in the Potteries where Timothy manufactured various kinds of pottery.

All in all, there is evidence that Ralph was connected to the Potteries and the Ralph Edge born in Lane Delph in the Potteries. However, Ralph’s age was recorded as 72 when he died which meant his birth would have been in around 1734. His baptism was on 15 September 1738. If his baptism was in the year of birth, this could possibly indicate this is not the correct Ralph Edge but his age may have been recorded incorrectly at his burial or he was simply baptised as a young child rather than as a baby.