• Jeremiah Yates, was born 2nd April 1808 at Lane End in Stoke-on-Trent, the North Staffordshire Potteries.  

• He had an eventful life and was a leading Chartist.

• Jeremiah was already an active Chartist by 1839 (when he was 28)

• The Yate's house at Miles Bank was large enough to be a centre of Chartist activity. Is is described variously as a 'Coffee House' and 'Temperance Hotel'. Yates was a very active Chartist. Jeremiah Yates was selling Chartist literature and also 'Chartist Beverage', a cheap coffee substitute, from his Miles Bank home.

• In 1842 Thomas Cooper (a leading Chartist from Leicester) visited Hanley to speak, he lodged at Yates home. 

• After the 1842 riots Yates was tried, convicted and sentenced to one year (a light sentence) in Stafford Gaol.

• When he died in 1852, at only 44, his funeral procession attracted two thousand people.

A public dinner took place in the large room at the Lamb Inn, Hanley on Monday last, the 7th instant when upwards of 100 sat down to partake of such fare as ought to grace every poor man's table (but who are unhappily deprived of it by the vile place-hunting, sinecure seeking aristocrats of this nation)....

After the cloth was drawn, a public meeting was held when Mr. G Mart of Stoke, a tried friend of the Working Classes was unanimously called to the chair".

Several resolutions were carried including one "Moved by Mr. John Sutherland, seconded by Mr. Jeremiah Yates that our female friends be requested to lend their able assistance in the further collection of the National Rent".

"I came to Hanley in consequence of an engagement to lecture to the Chartists of that place, and slept at Mr. Yates's on the Saturday night."

 "All seemed perfectly quiet when I reached Hanley the principal town in the Potteries on Saturday, 13th August, 1842 I saw nothing of the colliers who were on strike; and companied with the teetotal Chartists whom I had known when I paid a few days' visit to Hanley in April preceding. On Sunday morning in company with these Chartist friends, I went and spoke in the open air at Fenton and in the afternoon at Longton. In the evening I addressed an immense crowd at Hanley, standing on a chair in front of the Crown Inn: such ground being called Crown Bank by the natives."

This intention to continue the strikes until the Charter was accepted was to be put to a Chartist meeting on Monday. Cooper writes:

"I constituted myself chairman of the meeting on the Crown Bank at Hanley on Monday morning, the 15th August 1842, a day to be remembered to my life's end."

"I suppose there would be eight or ten thousand present. I showed them that, if they carried out the resolution no government on earth could resist their demand. 

But I told them that "peace Law and Order" must be their motto and that, while they took peaceable means to secure a general turn-out (strike) and kept from violence, no law could touch.

"... all hands seemed held up for it. Three cheers were given for success and the meeting broke up."

Men from the meeting left Hanley for Longton to persuade others to strike but a riot and violence ensued. At a further meeting on the Crown Bank that evening Thomas Cooper "warned all who had participated in that act that they were not the friends but the enemies of freedom."

Nevertheless, rioting and violence had got out of hand. Police and military cordoned off the Potteries, arrested hundreds -including Jeremiah Yates and Thomas Cooper.

The Staffordshire Examiner 20 August 1842 reported...

North Staffordshire Mercury 27 August 1842...

"Hanley. A meeting of the Chartists of the above place was holden on Monday evening last at Mr. Jeremiah Yates's Temperance Hotel when nearly 100 enrolled themselves under the New Plan of organisation. A Council has been formed and all those who are desirous of taking cards of membership may do so by applying at Jeremiah Yates's Temperance Hotel, Miles Bank, Shelton where meetings are holden every Monday evening at seven o'clock for carrying out the objects of our body"

"Meeting on Crown Bank, Hanley

On Monday evening last a meeting was held on the Crown Bank to return thanks to Mr Alderman Copeland and Mr Ricardo, the members for this borough and to Mr.T Duncombe for their opposition to the obnoxious master and servants bill, also against the Irish Registration Bill and in favour of the release of Thomas Cooper. The number present has been variously estimated at from 1000 to 2000. Mr. Jeremiah Yates was in the chair."

"Jeremiah Yates. On Monday morning last (October 11 1852) after a short illness, aged 42, Mr. Jeremiah Yates Assistant Surveyor of Highways for the Township of Shelton a situation which he had filled for several years.

The deceased was an early advocate of the total abstinence cause, and afterwards became a prominent actor in the Chartist agitation".

DEATH. On Monday morning last, awfully sudden, to the inexpressible grief of his family and friends, died Mr. Jeremiah Yates of the Temperance Hotel, Crown Bank, Hanley, Staffordshire Potteries, in the 42nd year of his age, leaving a wife and three children unprovided for. Mr. Yates was for many years a firm and consistent advocate of the Rights of Man, ever at his post, in season and out of season, mild and conciliating in his language, yet never yielding his principles.

His kindness and charity were proverbial, and he never withheld his mite from the indigent stranger or the poverty stricken workman in his own locality.

His loss will be deeply felt in this neighbourhood leaving a vacancy that cannot easily be filled up.

On the announcement of his death not a dry eye was to be seen - such a scene of grief and sorrow was never before witnessed in this neighbourhood.

It is the intention of the friends of the deceased, to adopt means to continue the bereaved widow in her present residence and that the house shall be conducted for her benefit, the same as during the lifetime of her lamented husband.

"Hanley: Funeral of the late Mr. Jeremiah Yates

In our obituary of last week we noticed the death of Mr Yates, the assistant surveyor of highways for Shelton. His remains were interred in the burial ground of Shelton Church on Sunday afternoon, and were followed to the grave by a very large number of his friends who walked in procession. The road from Crown Bank (his place of residence) to the church was lined with spectators and a dense crowd surrounded the burial ground".