A descriptive account of The Potteries (illustrated)
1893 advertising and trade journal. 

"In any attempt to offer a descriptive account of the manufacture of china, porcelain and earthenware, it is necessary to trace the history of the treatment to which the raw materials employed are exposed. 

The firm of Messrs. George Goodwin and Son, of Westwood Mills, Hanley, affords a capital exemplification of the preliminary process of grinding the ingredients necessary to the formation of a porcelain or earthenware vessel of superior quality. And here it may be noted that the preparation of these materials for the potter's use is, strictly speaking, a separate trade from that of pottery manufacture, the small houses purchasing the material ready prepared from firms engaged, as are Messrs. George Goodwin and Son, in the grinding department. 

The material treated by this firm include flints collected off the English and French coasts and Cornish stone from Cornwall. Of the substance known as flint, we need say but-little, as its leading properties and characteristics are pretty generally known to even the least erudite reader of these pages. 

But Cornish stone requires a word of description. It is composed of quartz, partially decomposed felspar, and a talcose material. It is quarried and sent direct to the Potteries in its native state, without any preliminary dressing, or other preparation there, of course, it requires grinding and special treatment before it can be used by the potters in making the many beautiful articles peculiar to their art. At Messrs. George Goodwin and Son's establishment the machinery employed in the grinding of the before-mentioned ingredients is of tho most powerful and modern character, which, considering tho nature of the material to be dealt with, is a fact that will be readily understood, a fine compound engine being required to supply the motor force. 

A lengthy period is necessarily occupied in the process of grinding, and the work is very effectively carried out by the most recent appliances. It will assist the reader to an appreciation of the fineness to which the hardest flints and Cornish stones are reduced when we mention that the liquid pulverised mass when thoroughly reduced can be passed through sieves made with about 4,000 meshes to the square inch. 

The trade of the firm lies among the various pottery establishments of the district. The business under our notice is one of old and honourable associations. It was founded some forty years ago by the father of the present principal, and by careful administration the business has become the largest of its kind in the neighbourhood of the Potteries. A number of barrel-shaped carts are employed in distributing the prepared material to its various destinations in the Potteries district. The house exemplifies in the most perfect manner the process of grinding preliminary to all porcelain and earthenware manufacture, and its business is an essential adjunct to the staple trade of the district."