in 1907..... 

St. Joseph's Catholic School-Chapel —Erected in 1898. Two-storey building, the upper storey serving as temporary Church. 

Accommodation, 350.

Rector, Rev. J. V. Hymers, Hall-street, Burslem. 
Assistant Priest, Rev. R. W. Noonan, The Presbytery, Hall-street.

Choirmaster, Rev. J. V. Hymers, Hall-street. 

Sittings, 350. 

Services—Sunday, Mass at 8, 9 30, and 11 am.; Sunday School, 3 p.m.; Evening Service, 6 30. Week days, Mass at 8 a.m.; Thursday, Evening Service at 7 30. 

Missions— Smallthorne School-Chapel. Accommodation, 100. Service, Mass on Sundays at 9 30 a.m.

• The Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Peter, and situated at Cobridge, was founded in 1780. 

• In 1895 a mission including Burslem, Smallthorne, and Wolstanton was formed out of the Cobridge church - the assistant priest from Cobridge served as the mission's  resident priest. 

• At first Mass was said at the Hill Top Pottery in Liverpool Road (later renamed Westport Road), in 1897–8 a building was erected in Hall Street containing a church dedicated to St. Joseph on the upper floor and a school on the lower. 

• The presbytery in Hall Street was built in 1903. 

• The present church of St. Joseph was built on an adjoining site in 1925–7. Designed in a Romanesque style by J. S. Brocklesby, it is of red and purple brick with campanile, small north-west tower, nave, passage aisles, transepts, and apsidal chancel. 

• The decoration of the ceiling and the work for the stained glass windows were carried out by the young people of the parish under the guidance of Gordon Forsyth, director of the Burslem school of Art; his daughter Maura painted most of the murals.  

• The Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace opened a present convent in Hall Street in 1926.
  

"St. Joseph's was designed by the same architect (J. S. Brocklesby) as Tunstall's Sacred Heart church. It was built 1925-7. The style is Romanesque/Italianate and the medium is almost exclusively brick. 

The two west towers; one square in plan and one smaller and round, reflect those of the Sacred Heart. St. Joseph's interior is basilican, with three bays to one super bay; beyond the flat ceiling is an aspe.

In his novels, Arnold Bennett based his "Church of the Genuflections" on St. Joseph's."

From: "Six of the Best, Richard Weir"