Description:This handwritten poem protests at social extremes of wealth, status and poverty in the Potteries at around the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
War
War with France had affected the fortunes of the Potteries by making trade with Europe impossible.
Now that the United States was becoming caught in the dispute, trade with America was also threatened.
Hunger
And as if the situation were not serious enough, successive bad harvests also resulted in serious food shortages and sky-high prices.
By 1812 the people of the Potteries were truly desperate.
The poem
Signed 'The Journeymen Potters,' the rhyme runs as follows:
Avaunt ye opprysers - ye evil combiners
Ye turn coat apostates - and base contra signers
Ye self intrest tyrants - your country's disdain
Avaunt from your follies - and turn back again
The grand resolutions you recently made
Disputing the welfare of commerce and trade
Overturn'd the petition you first did proclaim
Tho' you canvass'd about in defence of the same
You inform'd the Prince Regent and Percival great
That potting was now in a flourishing state
That the Orders in Council they must not withdraw
And you'd make the poor subjects obedient to Law
You pronounc'd that our chair man the audiences liked
Presented the Court with base fiction and lies
While thousands of paupers each day you may spy
And thousands are starving for want of employ
Such oppressions as these being allow'd to prevail
Makes our morals corrupt and our honesty fail
Makes robb'ries and murders and discord to meet
And beggars and prostitutes haunt every street
Yet ye two-faced Gods for two faces ye wear
The flourishing state of our country declare
Was this but the case and your meaning sincere
To stand up for our country with consciences clear
Was this the grand object you had in your view
We'd wish you success in whatever you pursue
But such sceptical thought anchors into each mind
That we cannot nor will not our doubts cast behind
Till proof of your honour in truth we afford
And your hellish misconduct be heard of no more
Your political views we presume for to say
Your country to rile with tyrannical sway
As is your intent for the good of the nation
But to make a great figure in high rank or station
For the knight apes the Marquis the Marquis his Grace
So you all wish to rise to some dignify'd place
No thank you as all our society owns
For teaching us how to subsist upon bones
Each slaughter-house then of all bones will be void
And perhaps we may lick up the blood and the hide
Nay, perhaps the same bones of our fore-fathers fame
Our sons and our daughters may feast of the same
But such diet's too rich for such paltry elves
So we wish you'll partake of the banquet yourselves.
About this document
This poem was collected, and probably transcribed by Burslem pottery manufacturer Enoch Wood.
It is now among the collections at Stoke-on-Trent Museums.