The artistic and industrial development of the potting trade in the eighteenth century
Masters and workmen in pre-Trades Union days

IT was not until after the second decade of this century that any attempt was made by the workmen engaged in the potting trade of Staffordshire to exert any organised influence over their employers. [footnote 1] 

The possession of natural advantages, arising from the clay-beds and coal-fields found in the locality, fixed the future trade of The Potteries ; but though the manufacture of earthenware can be definitely traced to Burslem so long ago as 1600, the date of its introduction into the district remains uncertain. The rough products of its earlier years belonged, however, in character if not in chronology, to the remote ages of the rudest conception and practice of the plastic art ; and the industry, as carried on in Staffordshire, had derived no assistance from the development of that art in intermediate ages, nor from its contemporaneous advancement on the Continent. 

THE "BUTTER-POT" PERIOD

Until the earlier half of last century it was still in the rudimentary stage, and there was but little distinction between the character of its products then and those of a century earlier, when Burslem — the seat and home of Staffordshire potting — was marked on the maps as " Butter-pot Town," and an Act of Parliament of the reign of Charles II. regulated the size and weight of the butter-pot which formed the staple item of its manufactures. But with the glazing of the red clay butter-pots, and the subsequent introduction of the finer white clays of Devonshire and Cornwall, began the process of that evolution and development which was soon carried to an immeasurably greater height by Wedgwood and Brindley and their contemporaries, who transformed a handicraft into an art.

This transformation in the character of the work produced no less a change in the worker, and a generation of skilled workmen — of artisans — arose. 

New processes and methods produced fresh branches of labour, and to each branch a distinctive skill was necessary. 
For example, the importation from the Continent of the process of making ware from Plaster of Paris moulds produced a distinct class of workmen called " pressers," who were again divided into two classes, — the flat- ware and the hollow-ware pressers. 

And so, with more than fifty years of progress and education, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw a generation of working potters almost as far advanced from their ancestors of the " butter-pot " period as the letterpress printer of to-day is from Caxton and Gutenberg. 

And, as the industry became more complex — each succeeding innovation demanding a change in technical method, or the acquirement of a totally distinct practice — the old system by which prices were regulated required constant modifications, and it was to this cause and opportunity, and to the individual disputes which constantly recurred between an individual master and his workmen in the settlement of what price should be paid for a fresh article of production or for a fresh process in its manufacture, that we must trace the beginnings of a workmen's Union. [footnote 2]

BEGINNINGS OF UNION - The first Potters' Union

The progress of this Union was indeed a matter of evolution. It began with those branches of the trade which were most affected by the innovations and improvements in methods of manufacture ; and, for a time, the workers in other branches who had been little, if at all, affected by these innovations, or whose condition and affairs had been modified or confirmed in the early days of the general development, remained wholly outside this movement. The whole tendency of the trade, indeed, had been — and long continued so — that the successive changes in process had introduced themselves so insidiously and imperceptibly that it was only by the introduction of some process of a revolutionary character that not only those concerned in that branch, but the workers in other branches, appreciated to the full the change that had passed over their heads. But the genesis of the movement must be traced to the disaffections felt by this or that particular branch of labour feeling that its rights were violated, and that they were adversely affected by the technical development, and very improvement of the trade.

A movement, perhaps, it can scarcely be called, for it was but the momentary rebellion or defence of an isolated group of workers in a particular branch, a protest called up by the circumstances of the moment, to be silenced by defeat or satisfied by victory, and then to cease when the immediate necessity which called it forth had so been disposed. It will therefore be seen how in its conception the spirit of their " movement " differed from that which, in a later day, found in the Trades Unions of Europe and the United States the active embodiment of a principle, rather than the temporary assertion of a right temporarily challenged.

THE STRIKE OF 1825 - The strike and collapse of 1825

In the year 1824 a generation of potters whose general skill had become hereditary, and who, moreover, being trained in a particular channel, had made that channel or particular branch a trade in itself, combined together to form the first Potters' Union. 

This Union had for its object the regulation of the prices paid to its members, and it was not long before an opportunity occurred to test its strength. In the following year, 1825, the hands of a number of manufactories struck for an advance of wages. The strike was confined to certain branches of the trade, and it is a fair assumption, from the fact that the Union was by no means complete, and then only in comparative infancy, that the workers in these branches throughout the trade were only affected to a limited extent. 

The strike quickly collapsed. The effort, indeed, was singularly ill-timed, for the whole industry shared with the general trade of the country a severe depression, and, apart from the conviction of the justice of their refusal to grant the asked-for advance, the masters could very cheerfully accept the alternative of keeping their manufactories closed, rather than keep them open under conditions which might have been absolutely unremunerative. There were soon a few seceders among the working potters, who returned to work upon the old terms, and quickly acknowledged defeat. 

The main body, however, upheld their demands with courage and resource. They had chosen to fight when their Union was young, with little or no accumulation of funds upon which to maintain their out-of-work members ; but, in order to make their financial resources go as far as possible, they hit upon the ingenious expedient of turning the idle hours of those on strike to account, by establishing a manufactory, controlled by the Union, in which the strikers were employed. It was not only hoped that this enterprise would become a source of direct profit, but it was expected, by thus giving employment to those on strike and to a portion of that surplus labour which, owing to bad times, had unfortunately become only too common in the district, to prevent an undue competition for employment on the part of the potters generally, and to check any tendency to weakness or surrender in those members of the Union who had struck. 

As might, however, have been foreseen, such a spasmodic effort at co-operative production by men inexperienced in the conduct of business — an effort, too, which was only the desperate expedient of a moment, and was not the outcome of any settled or prepared plan — was doomed to failure, and with the collapse of this bold and resourceful defence the whole movement collapsed. 

Those sturdy men who had kept their colours flying to the last were only too glad to be able to return to employment on terms much worse than those in protest against which they had abandoned it. Many of the leaders, indeed, were not allowed to return to their employment at all. 

As one writer, whose bias of mind was certainly not in favour of the men, afterwards said, those who had " actively promoted the strike were looked upon with great distrust by the masters, and were deemed dangerous characters, inasmuch as they would on all occasions be ready to excite a spirit of disaffection among their fellow-workmen, and take every opportunity of raising the price of labour. These leaders had subsequently considerable difficulty in obtaining employment, and some therefore left the district, while others looked for other occupations." [footnote 3] 

At a time when an accumulation of five centuries of enactments directed against labour and its combinations had but a few months previously, by the Act of 1824, been repealed by Parliament, and Trades Unions were freed from the ban of the law, though not yet accorded its protection, and when the power to assess the wages of workmen had but a few years been taken away from the magistrates of Quarter Sessions, it is not to be wondered at that the leaders in the defeated movement should have felt the enmity of their employers. 

But they paid another penalty of defeat — one almost invariably attaching to those who, in industrial warfare, play a similar part — for they who had dared most by the prominence of their advocacy of the claims of the workmen, and who suffered peculiarly by the general defeat, were maligned and neglected, and in their poverty unassisted by those on whose behalf they had risked their livelihood, and who had willingly followed their leadership when there was a promise of success.

ROBERT OWEN
Robert Owen's first visit

The Union, now deprived of its leaders, collapsed with the strike, and for the succeeding five years no attempt to re-organise any combination was made. Meanwhile, the general trade was recovering from its depression, and work was plentiful. The workmen then began to recover from the demoralisation of their defeat in 1825, and from amongst their ranks sprang new leaders. The Trades Union movement had been stimulated and encouraged in other parts of the country by the Acts of 1824-5, and delegates from Trades Unions from the Metropolis and Lancashire came down to address the working potters on the advantages and duties of union. Amongst others who so influenced them was the well-known Robert Owen, [footnote 4] the socialist and philanthropist of New Lanark ; and he, by preaching a larger and more far-reaching gospel of the power of democracy than the local leaders had expounded, or thought necessary to their purpose, infused an enthusiasm into the action of the potters which they had never before felt. They no longer regarded themselves as an isolated body of workmen fighting their battle in a trade which was confined to one locality, and having no contact with or sympathy from the outside world ; but, deriving new courage from the advent in their midst of the advanced apostles of labour from other parts of the country, they felt all the enthusiasm of men who fight for an abstract cause, and have set before themselves an ideal.

THE UNION OF 1833
Its praiseworthy objects 
Co-operation of masters and men to check competition  
Opposition of the main body of employers 

And so, in 1833, a new Union, born of an enthusiasm and a determination lacking in its predecessor, came to life, and daily grew in strength. It was formed of branch lodges, each meeting weekly for the transaction of its own business, and conducting its proceedings in a uniform manner, according to the rules and regulations provided for all. 

At the head of the Union was the Committee of Management, or Grand Lodge, composed of representatives from each branch lodge, and also meeting weekly. The Grand Lodge created funds for general purposes by a small weekly levy upon each member of the branches ; but the branch lodges had full control of their own funds, apart from the general levy, and undertook nothing of importance without the concurrence of the Grand Lodge, which in turn consulted the opinion of the branches, through the delegates appointed, upon any matter of general interest or importance. 

The constitution of the Union therefore encouraged and provided for the spread of its principles so as to embrace every branch of the trade, and it may at once be said that no completer Union has since been formed in the potting trade.

The ranks of the employers had increased with the revival of trade, but though work was plentiful and production had increased, wages still remained at the level at which they were at the time of the collapse of 1825 — in some cases lower, but in none higher — and many of the manufacturers were complaining of reduced profits. Low wages and low profits both proceeded from the same cause — the competition prevailing amongst the manufacturers — and the aim of the Union was, to quote the words of one of its officials, 

"to place a check upon the downward course of working prices by providing that if the masters were determined, by a destructive competition to depreciate the marketable value of their goods, they should not be allowed to lower the workmen's wages to meet the exigency." 

That this aim, arising out of the consideration of the reaction of competition and low wages upon each other, was part of the deliberate policy of the Union, promulgated from the outset, is clear from the address which was issued upon its formation, from which we take the following passage : — 

" The degradation to which our trade is exposed, arising from the unfair competition of the capitalists, and the labour-depreciating system growing out of it, with the distress consequent thereon, are the main reasons for this institution. To prevent the recurrence and increase of those evils, to obtain and maintain a just and reasonable remuneration for our labour, to resist and restrain oppressive power and authority, to afford mutual protection, assistance, care, and consolation to each other in every possible way, are the main objects of this institution."

The workmen here showed that they had a better conception of the elements upon which the prosperity of the trade was based than many of their employers, but it is a noteworthy circumstance — and one probably unique in the early annals of Trades Unionism — that the Union was welcomed with open arms by a few of the leading manufacturers, who, so far from seeing in its objects anything subversive of the rights or interests of their class, recognised it as an agency by which the trade might be benefited. 

WELCOMED BY THE EMPLOYERS

One of these enlightened employers, Mr Charles Mason, wrote a letter to a local newspaper declaring that 

"such was the state of trade through unfair competition among the manufacturers, that unless the workmen came forward for its protection, nothing but ruin need be expected," 

and promising to use his influence with his brother manufacturers to secure their sympathy and co-operation with the objects of the Union. 
As a result of his good offices, a few manufacturers met together, and invited the newly formed Union to send a deputation to them empowered to act in forming a list of working prices for the ensuing year, to take effect after Martinmas of 1833. 

The workmen gladly responded, and the effect of this revision of prices was to give complete satisfaction to the potters employed by those manufacturers who had thus led the van, and to the Union for the standard set, and the latter promised to use all its efforts in urging the example of that standard upon those manufacturers who had taken no part in the negotiations. 

But the latter formed the main body of the employers, and had rather less sympathy with what they regarded as the Quixotism of those who had volunteered an advance in wages than they had with the action of their workmen in forming themselves into a Union, and with the propaganda which they had formulated. 

They regarded their workmen as their natural enemy, and though they spoke of the Union as an " interference " with their business, they could only look upon it as the outcome of their workmen's position ; but the action of their fellow-employers was unintelligible to them, and they regarded them as traitors to their own class. 

When, therefore, the workmen began the campaign for levelling up prices against the main body of manufacturers, they found that the example given by the pioneers had only inspired contempt, and not respect, and it was clear that no general revision of prices would be obtained by a peaceful and persuasive process. 

 

The few manufacturers, however, manfully persisted in their principles, and upon their own urgent representation, a Standing Committee was appointed to continue the work which had been performed by the Committee which had fixed the working prices for the then current year, whose labours had come to an end. The Standing Committee was composed of an equal number of representatives of both sides, and met weekly 

" to fix the prices of workmanship of all new shapes and patterns, to decide upon all new regulations, new modes of work not contemplated in the price list, and to settle all disputes that might arise in respect of work." 

This Committee — whose functions really entitled it to be called an Arbitration Board — lasted but a few months, though it did much useful work in a short career. It met with the greatest opposition from the main body of the manufacturers, who now began to feel, through the reiterated demands of their own workmen, the moral pressure of the example so worthily set them by those employers who had sought for an amicable understanding with their men, based upon a broad and far-seeing comprehension of the conditions which would be best for the trade as a whole. 

But the verdicts of the Standing Committee upon the disputes submitted to it, so much favoured the men that even amongst those manufacturers who had formed part of it, division arose, and their dissatisfaction was supported by the clamour of those who had kept aloof from the Committee, and had scoffed at all its works. The dissentients in the Committee justified their dissent on the ground of the failure of the workmen in their efforts to secure advances from the main body equal to those conceded by themselves, and pleaded that the advances thus given had been given conditionally upon a success ; and so they joined the ranks of those employers who had refused to rise to the standard set (and were thus responsible for the failure charged against the men), and they threatened a reversion to the old prices. 

THE STRIKE OF 1834
The strike of 1834 — Victory of the Union

And then the Union knew that any further temporising would jeopardise the advantage already gained, and, in November 1834, the men employed by those manufacturers who had steadily refused all concessions, came out on strike, and nothing more was heard of a reversion to the old prices from the disaffected members of the Standing Committee.

Ten weeks after the commencement of the strike, those employers who were concerned in it called a general meeting of their body to decide what course should be pursued. They were the more disposed to come to terms because they saw those employers who were not involved in the dispute reaping increased benefits from the general briskness in the trade, and amongst such employers were those who had formed the Standing Committee, and who were, of course, paying higher prices than those who now sought their advice. 

It is, therefore, not surprising that the general meeting decided that some advance -in prices should be given.

Those employers who had originally conceded it had only anticipated what they regarded as the inevitable demands of the men, and had shown a wise disposition in turning the new Union to good account by treating it as an organisation which, as its proclaimed objects showed, was not oblivious of the general interests of the industry ; but they had been disheartened by the opposition of their fellow-employers, and had lost faith in the practicability of their own principles, and now saw in the position brought about by the strike a possibility of compromise between their own concessions and the opposition of the main body to any concessions at all. The terms proposed by the meeting of manufacturers were therefore a mean between the two ; but the workmen, encouraged by the evident yielding of the employers involved in the strike, persisted in their full demands, and held to the standard set. 

Negotiations followed, but the workmen remained firm, and nearly four months from the commencement of the strike, the masters yielded, and re-opened their manufactories, conceding the full terms originally demanded by the men, and thus establishing an equable rate of wages throughout the district. [footnote 5]

The working potters had secured an advance of twenty-five per cent, in their wages, and the strike of 1834-5 is memorable on such material account; but the incidents which led up to it are even more worthy of notice, as being concerned with the broad question — then raised for the first time and remaining unsettled to this day — of the extent to which the employed can help the employers in restraining an evil which nearly all employers have deplored, but to which nearly all have succumbed, and by which certainly all have suffered — the evil of reckless competition, only made possible by the depression of the wages of the workmen, who thus have a vital interest in the business methods of their employers. 

FOOTNOTES

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