a family of pottery workers.. 

Charles Hopkins, a potter’s ovenman, died suddenly in 1840 aged only about 30. So suddenly that the Coroner described it as a Visitation of God. 

His son, William Hopkins was born on 5 September 1832 in Shelton, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire and baptised on 06 Jan 1833 in Bethesda Chapel, Albion Street, Shelton. 

In the 1841 census, William is aged 9 living in Back Street, Shelton with his mother and brothers George and Ephraim, his father’s brothers Isaac Hopkins recorded as aged 20, an ironstone miner and Thomas Hopkins aged 20, a pottery slipmaker, plus two lodgers, Henry Halfpenny and Samuel Holland both recorded as aged 20. In 1843 his mother married the lodger Henry Halfpenny and they had a daughter, Mary Ann, but Mary herself died in 1847. 

By 1851 William, now aged 19, isa potter’s ovenman himself, and his brother Ephraim, aged 13, is a potter’s mouldrunner. They are lodging with their mother’s sister Jane Tinsley, her husband William and their 4 children, Thomas, William, Joseph and Harriet, in Tinker’s Clough, Hanley. 

On 28 December 1857, William married Hannah Barlow in St Mark’s, Shelton. She herself was listed as a potter’s stilt maker in the 1861 census. In 1858, on the birth of their son Charles, they were still living in Hanley but by the time their daughter Martha Ellen was born in 1860, they had moved to Fenton. In the 1861 census they were living at 5 High Street, Fenton (north side). William was listed as aged 27 and a potter’s biscuit oven placer.

 

the change from pottery workers to a family of greengrocers..

the man on the right is Mr E Hopkins (presumably Ephraim), the lady to the left of him is his assistant, and the man in the foreground with the horse is Jack the waggoner! 

By the 1871 census, William and Hannah are living at 35 High Street, Fenton, and listed as greengrocers. In the 1868 Post Office Directory for Staffordshire, his cousin Charles is listed as a shopkeeper in Well Street, Hanley.

William and Hannah had children regularly every 2 years during that period - Elizabeth in 1863, Hannah in 1865, William in 1867, Mary Matilda in 1869 and Ephraim Edward in 1871. 

William and Hannah had 12 children in total, of whom 2 died in childhood, plus several greengrocers shops in Stoke. Most of their children ended up running shops of their own or marrying traders of other descriptions.

In the 1881 census they are still at 35 High Street, Fenton; 

William is 48, a greengrocer. In Kelly’s Directory he is listed in 1876 and 1884 as trading at 35 High Street and also 221/223 High Street west, Fenton. In 1889 he is described as a potato dealer on his daughter Hannah’s marriage certificate. In 1891 they are at 60 Market Street and William is aged 58, fruiterer/greengrocer. 

• Their son Charles John was running a greengrocers shop at 7 London Road, Stoke in 1901. 

• Their daughter Martha Ellen married Samuel Willding in 1889 and in 1891 they were running a greengrocers in Howard Place, Shelton. By 1911 Samuel is listed as a fruiterer, book dealer and general dealer.

• Their son William became a greengrocer in Liverpool Road, Stoke. 

• Their daughter Mary Matilda helped in the family business and then married Edward Parsons, and in 1911 they were running the Old Eagle Inn in Whitchurch, Shropshire. 

• Ephraim married Minnie Simpson and they ran a greengrocers in High Street, Fenton. 

• Their daughter Asenath married John Thomas Davies in 1901 and they ran a shop in Stoke.  

• And their youngest son George Henry was a fruit dealer in Shelton in 1901, married to Selina Hargreaves, but in 1906 got a ship to New Zealand without her, married someone else and settled in Australia.

William died on 13 December 1891, aged 59. He left £227 5sh and 2d plus several properties to his wife Hannah provided she did not remarry. Hannah lived to be 83 and died in 1923, leaving £2,560. 

The family had a wharf at Etruria for the delivery of the produce, and Ephraim Hopkins was the first person in the area to sell bananas.    They had a banana warehouse at the back of  the Red Lion pub, which was just past St Peters Churchyard where the A500 'D Road' now comes across. 

At the time it was state of the art, the bananas came in green and were ranged in the warehouse to ripen. Gas heating to  ripen them off. This was in about the 1900's and it was still there in the early thirties - there was a big sign on the roof that could be seen from a passing bus.