. The Wedgwoods: being a life of Josiah Wedgwood; with notices of his works and their productions, memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families, and a history of the early potteries of Staffordshire. ed for the benefit of themselvesand their country, and behold vast piles of national wealthenhanced by individual industry. In 1688 two brothers named Eler, or Elers, traditionallybelieved to have been potters, from Holland, are said to havefollowed the Prince of Orange (William III.) to England, andtwo years later to have settled at Bradwell and at Dimsdale—two very secluded situations, far from tu
. The Wedgwoods: being a life of Josiah Wedgwood; with notices of his works and their productions, memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families, and a history of the early potteries of Staffordshire. ed for the benefit of themselvesand their country, and behold vast piles of national wealthenhanced by individual industry. In 1688 two brothers named Eler, or Elers, traditionallybelieved to have been potters, from Holland, are said to havefollowed the Prince of Orange (William III.) to England, andtwo years later to have settled at Bradwell and at Dimsdale—two very secluded situations, far from turnpike roads, andscarcely discernible from Burslem or Red Hill—where theyerected kilns, and commenced the making of a fine red ware,in imitation of the oriental red porcelain, from a vein of clay THE EARLY POTTEEIES OF STAFFORDSniRE. 41 which, by some means, they had discovered existed at tliis they produced remarkably fine and good red ware, ofcompact and hard texture, good colour, and of very charac-teristic and excellent designs. They were men of much skilland taste, and their productions so closely resemble those ofJapan as to be occasionally mistaken for them. An example,. from the Museum of Practical Geology, is here shown. TheElers, besides the red ware, also produced an exceedingly goodEgyptian black, by a mixture of manganese with the clay;and this was the precursor and origin of the fine black bodiesof Josiah Wedgwood and others. Their extreme precau-tion, says Shaw, to keep secret their processes, andjealousy lest they might be accidentally witnessed by anypurchaser of their wares—making them at Bradwell, andconveying them over the fields to Dimsdale, there to be sold,being only two fields distant from the turnpike road, andhaving some means of communication (believed to be earthen-ware pipes, like those for water) laid in the ground betweenthe two contiguous farmhouses, to intimate the approach ofpersons supposed to be intruders—caused them to expe
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