1913. 3URSLEM 1578 - 176 1. Staffordshire Staffovbsbire pansb IRegisters Society E d i t o r a n d H o n . S e c r e t a r y : PERCYSample W. CountyL. ADAMS, Moreton House, Wolstanton. D e a n e r y o f H a n l e y . Studies Burslem Ipansb IReotster. PART I. P r i v a t e l y p r in t e d for t h e Staffordshire P a r is h R e g is t e r s So c i e t y . A ll Communications respecting the printing and transcription o f Registers and the issue o f the parts should be addressed to the Editor. Attention is especially directed to Notices on inside of Cover. Staffordshire SampleCounty Studies ' .-SRSffit M OHA'fROVO. WArt Staffordshire JSurslem. Burslem is a town of over 40,000 inhabitants and 3,100 acres, in North Staffordshire. In the year of Grace 1910 it was merged into the County Borough of Stoke-on-Trent, but it still retains its general individuality. It is the old Mother- town of the world-famous Staffordshire Potteries, and was for several centuries by far the most important of the six towns— Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton, and Longton— which go to make up the County Borough. ' Burslem is on the Trent and Mersey Canal and has three Railway Stations— Burslem, Longport, and Cobridge, on the North Staffordshire lines. It is in the North-West Division of the County, North Pirehill Hundred and Petty Sessional Division, Wolstanton Sampleand Burslem Union,County County Court District of Burslem, Rural Deanery of Hanley, Archdeaconry of Stoke-upon-Trent, and Diocese of Lichfield. It is an ancient Chapelry, and occurs in Domesday as Barcardeslim and in various records and charters as Borewardeslyme, Burewardesley-lime, Bur- wardeslime, Burwareslem, and Burdeslem. Mr. W. H. Duignan, in his notes on ‘ ‘ Staffordshire Place-names,” gives the derivation as (Anglo-Saxon) Burhweardes-hlimme— Burhweard’s stream. At the Domesday Survey, Ulviet held it under Robert de Stafford as one-third of a hide ; one villein with four bordars had a single plough team, and there were two acres of alder, or willow trees ; Alward had owned it T.R.E. ; 10s. was the yearly value. Studies It was originally an independent manor, but became united with Tunstall by the Lords Audley. From the Inquisition p.m. of Humphrey de Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who was slain at the battle of Northampton, 10th July, 1460, it will be observed that one of his possessions was half a Knight’s-fee in Borewareslain, held under him by Nicholas Lord Audley. Burslem came under the jurisdiction of Tunstall Court, together with Sneyd, Chell, Bemersley, Wedgwood, Thursfield, Stad- moreslow, Brierehurst, Ranscliff, Oldcott, Chatterley, and Bradwell. The Court at Tunstall was established 37 Henry III., a grant of free warren being given to James de Audley by the King in that year. The lords Audley acquired the Manor from their kinsmen, the Gresleys, their predecessors and overlords being the Barons of Stafford, to whom they were related by marriage. The lands within the Manor were copyhold, and for the most part were not enfranchised until the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I., when Ralph Sneyd, Esquire, of Bradwell and Keele, was Lord of the Manor, his father, Sir Wm. Sneyd, Knt., having purchased in 1577 the Manors of Tunstall and Burslem from his nephew, George Touchett, Lord Audley; or rather two-thirds of the Manor, for one-third of the Manor had descended from the Audleys to the Lords FitzWarrenand afterwards to the Earls of Bath ; and was sold by the latter early in the 17th century to Sir John Bowyer, of Knypersley. JJIAH COUNTY GENEALOGICAL ' AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY ii. Staffordshire Parish Registers. According to Doomsday, Burslem was held by a freeholder, and the reason for it being afterwards copyhold may have been through the Barons Audley boldly usurping it as such ( Ward). It appears from the Manor Court Rolls to have been customary freehold, and not subject to villeinage. The chief landowners (mostly by copy of court roll) in Burslem parish and families of some considerable importance were the Burslems, of Burslem and StaffordshireDale Hall (they owned some 650 acres in or around Burslem), while other principal landowners from a very early period were the Biddulphs, of Biddulph, the Adams family, of Burslem and Tunstall, the Colcloughs, of Burslem, Newcastle, and of Coleclough, also the Crocket and Daniel families. The Wedgwoods, who migrated from Biddulph to Burslem early in the 17th century, were the heirs of the Burslems and Colcloughs. The Burslem family of Burslem, of Dale Hall, and Oldcot Park, in Wolstan- ton, appear to have died out in male line many generations ago, but Ward (Hist. Boro, of Stoke-on-Trent) traces their descent in female line to the Hastings family, Earls of Huntingdon. In the reign of* Elizabeth, Joan, daughter of John Burslem, of Burslem, married (October 20th, 1594) Thomas Adams, Master Potter, of Burslem, and one generation later Thomas Burslem, of Burslem, &c., lacking a male heir, made his two daughters, Margaret, wife of Gilbert Wedgwood, and Katherine, wife of Wm. Colclough, Barrister-at-law, his co-heiresses. In 1647 the parish of Burslem was visited with the Plague, and many of the inhabitants died, but the parish registers give us no information on the subject, probably because none of the victims were buried in the Churchyard. They were buried near Rushton Grange ; the Roman Catholic Priest, who dwelt there, pronouncingSample absolutionCounty before interment (Ward). The plague was said to have been brought from Italy by a lady who had the care of the children of Mr. Biddulph, who at that time lived at Rushton Grange. Ward quotes from a document found in Stoke Parish Chest, being an order of the Magistrates at the Easter Quarter Sessions, 24 Charles I., confirming the previous order of two Justices of a Petty Session, which had been granted on the application of the overseers of Burslem for taxing twelve neighbouring parishes in aid “ for relief of the Poor that were visited with the plague.” In 1272 the Audleys were working a coal mine at Burslem (Staff. Coll., Vol. XI., N.S., p. 239), while in the days of Elizabeth there were many coal mines worked by the Colcloughs, Adams, Crockets, and Wedgwood families. At what period pottery was first made at Burslem and district,Studies it is impossible to say ; but it was undoubtedly at a very early date, and certainly made in 1448, since William Adams and Richard, his brother, paid the Lord of the Manor in that year a fine for procuring clay for that purpose (vide Tunstall Court Rolls— Keele Hall). It would be little more than a pastime for the yeoman farmers and their workmen in those days, but perhaps a means of livelihood to the peasant, and consisted mostly of jowls, water-bottles, and similar articles. It is more than likely that the local manufacture was given considerable impetus at the time of the dissolution, in 1536, of the Cistercian Abbey of Hulton, which lay in the parish, for encaustic tiles of good quality, as well as other pottery, are known to have been made at the Abbey Pottery by the Monks. In 1617, William Adams is described as a Master Potter (in his will proved March 30th in that year), so also is Thomas Adams (in his will proved March 29th, 1629); indeed, from the inheritance which he left to his descendants of lands, pot-houses, workhouses, and the ‘ ‘implements belonging to the trade of pottinge,” it would appear that even at so early a date he had been working a factory and employed “ hands.” He died early in life, but left ample provision for the education of his daughters as well as sons, a somewhat unusual provision for the period. Again, John Colclough, in his will proved 7th May, 1657, left his potting boards and other implements and materials belonging to the trade of potting (lead and lead ore excepted) to his kinsman, Thomas Wedgwood. Quite early in the 17th century, and probably earlier, the industry of Pottery had begun to be important in Burslem, and in the following century, under the able hands of Josiah Wedgwood, William Adams, John Turner, and, later still, Josiah Spode and Thomas Minton, it became world famous. Bursletn. ix. Burslem was the birth-place of Josiah Wedgwood, probably the greatest Potter the world has known, whose baptism occurs in the register, July 12th, 1730. He worked the historic Brick-House Works, Burslem (called Brick-House because the house attached was said to be the first house entirely built of brick in Burslem), for some ten years prior to his building Etruria. It was at the Brick-House that he was joined by his partner, James Bentley, and made Potter Staffordshireto her Majesty Queen Charlotte. The factory was built by John Adams (baptised at the Church, August 22nd, 1624) in 1657, probably on the site of an older factory, and was let to Josiah Wedgwood when the Adams heir was a minor (v. Meteyard, “ Life of Wedg­ wood,” Vol. I., p. 329, and W. Turner, F.S.S., “ William Adams, an Old English Potter,” p. 174). It was at the Brick House and at Cobridge that Adams begun in 1775 to decorate his productions with the “ transfer print ” (the first attempt in Staffordshire— v. Wm. Turner, F.S.S., “ Transfer Printing,” p. 78, and Shaw, “ Hist. Staff. Potteries, 1829,” P- 212), which Joseph Mayer, F.S.A., in his history of the Art of Pottery in Liverpool, says has helped to make English pottery famous throughout the civilised world ; while R.