Tea
The wealth of the potteries was founded on the fashion for tea drinking which swept the UK in the late seventeenth century. "When a teapot manufacturing business came on the market, the three partners, Messrs. Alcock, Lindley and Bloore, decided to buy it, and so a new company was born. At this factory Rockingham glaze, which passed the low solubility test, was first introduced and is now used throughout the trade with a consequent elimination of lead poisoning, which up to that time had been very prevalent".

Susie Cooper
Designer of fantastic ceramic wares - especially tea services - from the 1920's until the 1980's. Trained at Burslem School of Art, she was one of the first female designers to set up a successful pottery of her own.

Thomas Wedgewood
Fourth son of Josiah. A pioneer of early photography, he succeeded in making photographic images on white leather but "unable to fix the images...Wedgwood was reduced to examining his pictures furtively by the light of a candle".

Health
Respiratory disease was a major problem in the potteries because of the smoke produced by all the kiln firings. " You cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns... for this its atmosphere is as black as mud; for this it burns and smokes all night so that Longshaw (Longton) has been compared to Hell." [The Old Wives' Tale, 1908 Arnold Bennett]

Pottersville : a utopian city building exercise of the 1840's
The Potter's Union set up a subscription scheme to purchase a piece of land in Wisconsin, USA to house a new settlement called Pottersville. Lots were drawn at the Tontine meat market to select the emigrants.

Hanley
The town is first recorded in 1227, known as 'Hanlih'. The name means either a high wood, or a clearing in that wood. The six towns have always competed with each other and always resisted Hanley's claim to be the city centre.