John Shaw of Carter Street, Uttoxeter, was principally a grocer and tea dealer with a side line in the manufacture of sewing cotton and linen thread, the latter probably in association with Robert Shaw. Apart from John, the 1818 trade directory lists a number of other Shaws: Robert Shaw, linen and cotton manufacturer, Sheep Market; Mary Shaw, lace worker, Pinfold Lane; and perhaps most significantly because it may have enabled John to access workhouse contracts, a Job Shaw, governor of the House of Industry, Uttoxeter Heath.

Like many nineteenth-century grocers, Shaw carried a range of foodstuffs: loaf sugar, moist sugar, mixed tea, Congou tea, coffee, treacle, ginger, pepper, mustard, rice, saltpetre, black pepper, currants, raisins, and clove pepper. He also stocked soap, candles, tobacco, black lead, soda, whiting, starch and blue.

Shaw was prosperous enough to have illustrated pre-printed billheads such as the one dated 30 November 1835 which provides further evidence of the goods he stocked including tobacco, pickling vinegars, and ‘every description of eating and other oils, butters, hops, seeds, &c’.

There is a stylised westernised depiction of a ‘Chinaman’ dressed in flowing robes and wearing a bamboo dŏulì or rice hat. He is sat by the coast on chest of Fine Hyson tea with his left arm resting on a canister of ‘Turkey and all other Coffees, Cocoa &c’. Behind him is a pagoda, similar to the one at Kew Gardens in front of which is a large six sided, oval jar. Out at sea is a tea clipper.

Representations of Chinamen are seen on other billheads, often in conjunction with other generic figures (see ‘Advertising a Global Outlook’ post), and raises interesting questions relating to national sentiment.

Transporting tea was hazardous, with ships subject to storms, shipwrecks and smuggling. To compensate for erratic supplies to the domestic market, tea was often adulterated, reused and imitated. There was a thriving trade in second hand tea purchased from servants working in grand households, or from hotels to which the unscrupulous added a range of adulterants to ‘improve’ its colour and taste: ferrous sulphate, verdigris, and carbon black, were favourite additives. Such adulteration was widespread and often commented upon, but only occasionally was action taken against those involved: in 1818 eleven people were tried and convicted in London for adulterating tea. But it was not just that adulteration existed but who was believed to be doing the adulteration. Thomas Short’s A Dissertation upon Tea (1730) and John Lettsom’s Natural History of the Tea Tree (1772) both alleged that it was the Chinese. Such accusations grew during the rest of the century, increasing significantly in the nineteenth. The reality was that most of the adulteration was carried out in Britain by domestic dealers and suppliers eager to overcome shortages.

Shaw’s representation of the ‘Chinaman’ as a means of advertising his wares comes just prior to the introduction in the late 1830s of Indian and later Ceylon tea from Britain’s expanding empire. Purchasing and consuming products from the empire was regarded as patriotic; Indian and Ceylon teas were increasingly associated with Britishness whilst Chinese tea was regarded with suspicion. Like the representation of the Chinese figure in ‘Advertising a Global Outlook’, Shaw’s ‘Chinaman’ is presented as placid and unthreatening. It would be interesting to know whether later bills presented by Shaw continued to adopt the ‘Chinaman’ as a sales technique, or whether he had succumbed to national sentiment.

Sources

John Burnett, Plenty and Want: A Social History of England from 1815 to the Present Day (London: 1989)

Peter Collinge, ‘Chinese Tea, Turkish Coffee and Scottish Tobacco: Image and Meaning in Uttoxeter’s Poor Law Vouchers’, Transactions of the Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society, XLIX (June 2017)

Frederick Filby, A History of Food Adulteration and Analysis (London: 1934)

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory presenting an Alphabetical Arrangement of the Names and Residences of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Inhabitants in General (Manchester: 1818)

Liza Picard, Dr Johnson’s London: Life in London 1740–1770 (London: 2000)

Erika Rappaport, ‘Packaging China: Foreign Articles and Dangerous Tastes in the Mid-Victorian Tea Party’ in Frank Trentmann (ed.), The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World (Oxford: 2006).

SRO, D3891/6/42/75, Bill to Overseers from John Shaw, 30 November 1835

James Walvin Fruits of Empire: Exotic Produce and British Trade, 1660–1800 (London: 1997)

N.B. This  is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available.

Uttoxeter had a number of brickworks situated on the Heath near to the workhouse. It is almost certain that most of the bricks were used locally. Indeed, Kingman has calculated that as around 40 per cent of a brick’s cost could be accounted for by its transportation the distance between production site and final destination was often short. The poor law vouchers contain payments for the digging out of clay, for the transport of other raw materials, particularly coal from Stoke-upon-Trent and Cheadle, and for brick production, but not for transportation. The latter costs may have been covered by the purchasers. Pitt’s history of Staffordshire (1817) notes that in the town ‘The houses in general are well built of brick, and commodious. The wharf belonging to the Grand Trunk Canal Company, with several large warehouses enclosed by a brick wall, … has contributed much to the prosperity of this small but flourishing town … There are several neat mansions of brick, built in the vicinity of the wharf’.

Until mechanisation in the nineteenth century, brick-making was both relatively small-scale and seasonal with manufacturers often engaged in other occupations. Clay tended to be dug between autumn and spring, with the actual process of brick-making occupying the summer and autumn months.

The only Utttoxeter brick-layer noted in the 1793 Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture was William Hubbard who also doubled as a maltster. No brick-makers were listed. What is perhaps surprising is that even by the time of Parson and Bradshaw’s 1818 directory although the number of brick-layers had increased there were still no brick-makers listed. John Allen of Balance Hill, John Allen of Pinfold Lane, William Blurton, John Chatfield, William Eglison, William Hubbard, Neville Newbold, and John Walker were all brick-layers. Edward Hooper was both a bricklayer and builder, and more unusually John Tunnicliffe of High Street was listed as a brick-layer, grocer and flour dealer. Thomas Salt is described as the ‘agent for the sale of tiles of all descriptions, fire and floor brick, & Quarrie’s patent water, etc, pipes’. Many of these items are listed amongst the overseers’ vouchers.

The situation had shifted considerably by 1834. Brick-layers included Joseph Blurton, Anthony Chatfield (who crops up many times in the vouchers), Edwin Chatfield, John Chatfield and John Chatfield junior. A number of brick-makers are also listed. They included Clement Baxter, John Hudson, Margaret Parker and (unless this was a place rather than a person) the unlikely sounding Parish Yard. All were located on the Heath. In Uttoxeter were John and William Hales.

Jane Baxter, the daughter of George and Jane Baxter, was baptised on 3 February 1792. Her siblings included Clement (1780–1841), George (1786–1852), James (baptised 13 October 1789), Peter (baptised 17 October 1796) and Edward (1794–1859). George Baxter, a yeoman, died in 1802. In his short, probated will (£100) he left all of his real and personal estate to his ‘loving wife Jane’ for her own enjoyment and disposal. No mention was made of any children. His executors were William Chatfield, yeoman, and William Rogers, gardener (see entry 2 Feb. 2018)

At what point Clement Baxter entered upon the brick trade is unknown. The earliest reference we have is in the 1834 directory. His will of 1841 (£200) described him as a brick-maker. He bequeathed all his real and personal estate to his sister Jane appointing her as his sole executrix. We may ask why Jane was bequeathed the brickworks ahead of her brothers. Although it is often thought that males always inherited businesses before females, this was not necessarily the case. If it was felt that the men in the family were already established in their own occupations, or regarded as feckless or lazy, women often inherited. It may also have been a way of securing an income for the unmarried Jane thus reducing or eliminating her dependence upon the family. She also had practical experience in the brickworks operated by Clement. Her name appears in a number of overseers’ vouchers showing that she was dealing with the accounts. On 14 July 1829 there is a settled bill for 300 bricks costing 8s, whilst in March 1830 she received £5 8s 0d for a delivery of dung. This involvement would have placed her in a good position. She knew who the customers were and more importantly those who paid on time and those who did not. She would have known where raw materials could be obtained and the price to pay for such items.

In both the 1851 and 1861 Census returns Jane Baxter is recorded as being unmarried and living alone on Uttoxeter Heath. In 1851 she is listed as a brick-maker mistress. She is also listed as a brick-maker in White’s 1851 directory alongside Porter and Keates who by then had added brick and tile making to their other activities as grocers, tea dealers, ironmongers, chandlers, hemp and flax dressers, and nail manufacturers.

Following Jane Baxter’s entry in the 1851 Census is the entry for Peter Baxter, a brick maker journeyman; his wife Charlotte and their son Isaac, a cordwainer journeyman, and brick-maker journeyman John Norris. In all likelihood Peter was working for his sister. Whilst Peter was a brick-maker journeyman in 1831 he applied to the overseers for a pair of new shoes for his wife costing 6s. In 1835 he received £1 0s 0d for clothes for an apprentice. Clearly, although in work, his income was insufficient at times. The 1851 Census also lists widow Elizabeth Baxter (69) living on the Heath with her sons Thomas (35) a carter and labourer, and Edward (33) a brick-maker journeyman. Both were unmarried. Elizabeth was possibly the widow of Jane’s brother George. Other brick-makers on the Heath were Thomas Parker and his son Charles described as a brick-maker/servant, and master brick-layer William Godrich.

By the time of the 1861 Census much had changed. Jane was out of business; Peter, now widowed, had become a servant, and Isaac has disappeared from the record. Norris was still a brick maker. Also listed as a brick-maker was G[iddeon?] Prestbury.

Jane died in 1867 and is buried in the churchyard of St Lawrence, Bramshall.

Sources

Peter Barfoot and John Wilkes, Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture (1793)

Bramshall, St Lawrence Memorial Inscriptions

Mike Kingman, ‘Brickmaking and Brick Building in Staffordshire 1500–1760’, (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University, 2006)

Mike Kingman, ‘The Adoption of Brick in Urban Staffordshire: the Experience of Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1665–1760’, Midland History, 35:1, (2010)

C. C. Owen, The Development of Industry in Burton-upon-Trent (1978)

William Parson and Thomas Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, 3 vols (Manchester: J. Leigh, 1818), II

William Pitt, A Topographical History of Staffordshire (Newcastle-under-Lyme: J. Smith,1817)

SRO, D3891/1, Uttoxeter Parish Registers

SRO, D3891/6/34/12/040, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 14 Jul. 1829

SRO, D3981/6/36/1/22, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 7 Mar. 1830

SRO, D3891/6/36/6/21, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 20 Nov. 1831

SRO, D3891/6/43/3/7, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 30 Jun. 1835

SRO, D3891/6/42/19, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 6 Oct. 1835

TNA, IR27/360, Court of Probate, Wills and Probate

TNA, H.O. 107/2010, Census 1851

TNA, R.G. 9/1955, Census 1861

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1834)

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1851)

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.