nt potters of
every European country with characteristic wares, but nowhere was it
used with greater skill than in England. The English slip-decorated
wares are often spoken of as "Toft ware," because Thomas Toft, living in
what is now Hanley (Staffordshire) boldly signed and dated many of his
pieces (1670, &c.); but similar wares were made at Wrotham in Kent, in
Derbyshire, Wales and elsewhere. The repute of the Staffordshire
district must have spread by the time of the Revolution, for soon after
1690 John Philip Elers, a Dutchman of good family, settled there and
began to make a superior pottery to any previously made in the district.
Elers is generally described as a great inventor who brought all kinds
of knowledge into the district, but the only wares he is known to have
made were singularly like those of Dwight, and, quite recently, records
of a lawsuit in which Dwight charged Elers and some other Staffordshire
potters with suborning his workmen and infringing his patents have been
brought to light. It is certain that, from the time of Elers, the
Staffordshire potters made great advances in the fabrication of their
wares, and during the 18th century they evolved two distinctively
English kinds of pottery, (1) the white and drab salt-glaze, (2) English
earthenware.

_Staffordshire Salt-glaze._--It is uncertain when and how the
Staffordshire potters learnt that a highly siliceous pottery could be
glazed by throwing common salt into the kiln at the height of the
firing, for the practice had originated in the Rhineland more than a
century before. Many writers have maintained that the practice was
introduced by Elers, but this is uncertain. Early in the 18th century a
fine, white, thin, salt-glazed ware was made in Staffordshire, in many
quaint and fanciful forms largely influenced by Chinese porcelain--still
an object of wonder and mystery. Teapots, coffee-pots, tea-caddies,
plates, dishes, bowls, candlesticks, mugs and bottles were made in great
variety, and at its best the ware is a dainty and elegant one, so that a
brisk trade was developed in the district, and, for the first time, a
distinctively English pottery was exported to the continent and to the
American colonies.

_English Earthenware._--The manufacture of tin-enamelled pottery
scarcely obtained a foothold in Staffordshire, but the invention of the
white salt-glazed ware paved the way for one of the greatest revolutions
in the potter's art that the world