SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY The result was an enormous development in the output of coal in Staffordshire and the other coalfields of England, followed by an immediate revival in the coal and iron trades, which had greatly declined between 1737 and I74O. 97 At the same time there was a series of important inventions affecting the manufacture of iron, and as a result all the various branches of the hard- ware trade received an immense impulse, and population grew rapidly in all the towns and manufacturing villages of the district. In North Staffordshire a similar effect was seen in the mining and pottery industries. In the latter, great progress had been made under the influence and guidance of Wedgwood, especially since the introduction of china clay from Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall had led to the establishment of the porcelain manufacture in this county, and consequently to a vast extension of the pottery trade there. Arthur Young, whose account of his northern tour through England was published in 1771, speaks of the rapid increase of the industry and its considerable export trade to Ireland, most of the European countries, America, and the East Indies, despite the great obstacles arising from the extraordinary difficulty of transporting the goods to the coast by means of wagons and pack-horses along the narrow clayey roads which led out of the county. 98 The success of Brindley's effort in 1758 in making a canal for the Duke of Bridgewater's colliery at Worsley caused the progressive spirits among the North Staffordshire manufacturers, led by Wedgwood, to agitate for a similar enterprise in that district. 99 There was great opposition from the people of Newcastle, as they feared the traffic might be diverted from their town, to the detriment of their trade. But despite opposition the Grand Trunk or Trent and Mersey Canal was opened in 1777, and very greatly increased the trade of the Potteries, passing as it does through its chief towns, and connecting these with the centres of the salt industry of Cheshire and with the ports on the coast, notably Liverpool. Other canals followed in quick succession, chief among them being the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal, projected to unite the Severn with the Trent, and connected with the system now known as the Birmingham Navigation, which in its turn connects Birmingham with Wolverhampton, Bilston, and other centres of the iron and coal industry in South Staffordshire, so that this district presents a perfect network of canals with innumerable foundries, coal-pits, and other works clustered along their banks for convenience of transport. Among other short branch canals may be mentioned one of eighteen miles which runs from Uttoxeter up the Churnet Valley till it joins the one at Caldon, and finally meets the Grand Trunk at Stoke on Trent. About the same time that canals were being constructed all over Stafford- shire, the turnpike roads were undergoing great improvement, firstly by means of Acts of Parliament which enabled tolls to be levied for their upkeep, and afterwards owing to the improved methods introduced by Metcalfe, Telford, and Macadam. There was an early system of primitive railways in this county, in con- nexion with the mines, e.g. there was a system of wayleaves at Newcastle w De Gibbins, Industry in Engl. (1906), 352-3. 98 Arthur Young, Tour through the North of England, iii, 253. " L. Jewitt, The Wedgwoods, 163. 2 9 I
