The Middleport Pottery of Burgess and Leigh (opened 1888)  

The blunger - washes the clay and converts it to slip

 

Location 6 on the index diagram

 

Burgess and Leigh installed the latest mechanised processes in their potworks - the blunger was one of them. William Boulton designed the blunger and patented it in 1874.

 

A doctors report to the 1840 commission into child labour in pottery works stated:

" 'Slip making', or preparing the clay, is another unwholesome occupation. "The clay" is prepared by boiling the composition to a proper consistence on kilns, and during the process of evaporation, the room is filled with dense aqueous vapour. The men engaged in this branch suffer severely from winter cough and chronic bronchitis; and but few of them, if they survive, are able to perform much labour after the age of 60".

The blunger washes the clay and converts it to slip.
At one time this was an arduous manual job

Previous was the linkage from the steam engine
Next is the filter press 

questions/comments/contributions? email: Steve Birks