Census returns
- Examining the censuses and interpreting the details
- Making contact with a descendant of the pottery owner
My next step was to look at all the census returns from 1851 to 1891, extracting the names of everybody who might have worked in the Pottery, while other names were added from local parish records.
'I appealed to the Derbyshire Family History Societies for information ...'
One important 'find' from 1851 was a pottery model-maker from Staffordshire lodging in Bishop Auckland, confirmation perhaps that the Pottery was making decorative objects. The census returns gave details of the pottery workers and recorded their and their children's birthplaces and ages.
From this information, it was possible to follow their movements before arriving at Canney Hill and to discover where they had gained their experience. I was particularly interested in the principal character in this story, John Cooper, who was owner of the pottery for a substantial part of its life. I discovered that he had co-owned a pottery in Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, and before that he worked in Bradford.
Knowing he was born in Chesterfield, I appealed to the Derbyshire Family History Societies for information, and was soon contacted by Lionel Exford, a descendant of Cooper's elder brother, Henry Cooper, who had also worked at Canney Hill.
Lionel was able to give me valuable information on potteries in the Chesterfield area, and to share his knowledge of the Cooper family. Another Cooper brother had emigrated to Australia where it's possible he may have met John Welsh and told him of the family's interest in pottery but no evidence of this was ever found.
Published: 2005-03-03
