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St. Matthew's
Church, Etruria
pen drawing by Neville Malkin - January
1976
-click picture for more-
[Since demolished]
photos and maps of St. Matthew's
Church
The church of St. Matthew, Etruria was founded in September 1847, 40 years after the building of the Etruria pottery works and village by Josiah Wedgwood. Originally in the parish of St. Mark, Shelton - the new parish of Etruria was created in 1844. The
Boatmen's Chapel:
St. Matthew's Etruria :
The church was designed by Henry Ward and Son of Hanley. on Henry Ward It is Early English style and contained 727 sittings, 500 of these were free. The church cost £2,500 to erect and the living was £150 per annum. The tower contained one bell.
St. Mathew's consisted of nave, aisles,
chancel and north-west turret. There were originally galleries on three
sides.
Vicars of St. Matthew's:
Firsts: The first burial took place before the church had been officially opened - that of Anne Price, aged 22 on May 25th 1847. The first christening took place on October 3rd 1847 - it was John Collier Slack, son of William Henry and Slack of Mill Street, Etruria. First triplets - on February 13th 1848 the triplets of John and Mary Cooke - Mary Caroline, John and Eliza - were christened. First wedding took place at the church on June 25th 1849 between Samuel Beckett and Hannah Eastwood.
The first vicar, Rev Wynter, was the Chaplain to the nearby "House of Recovery" - the first North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary. The vicar Rev. Topham had two curates - the Rev. J. W. Evans and the Rev. W. L. M. Law. The latter stayed in Etruria until 1907, when he left to take charge of a church in Pisa (of leaning tower fame), part of the ancient Etruria in Italy. It was in the Rev. Topham's time that a child, Andrew Hollins, aged six, was overcome by fumes and burnt to death on a slag heap belonging to the nearby Shelton Company. He was buried in the churchyard on October 19th 1865. The last person buried in the Churchyard was "Old Betsy Billington", she was buried by the Rev. Willis Barrett on January 16th 1908. She was the caretaker of the church and a mistress at the church school until it closed in 1902. There were a total of 973 burials at the churchyard. In September 1940 and January 1941 bombers, seeking to bomb the Shelton Works, dropped high explosive bombs in the churchyard, adding to the havoc caused by the subsidence. When the church reached its centenary in 1947 there were no celebrations but the church was thoroughly renovated - the re-opening ceremony was held on September 16th 1948 and celebrations were held in September 1948 and 1949.
Nine feet of he short tower was removed in 1935, as it was found to be
15 inches out of the perpendicular, due to the extraordinary subsidence
in Etruria. Subsidence, due to mining, has been a problem in Etruria. By the early 1950's there was a drop of two feet ten inches from west to east in the church and and eighteen inch drop from north to south. In 1938 the escape of expanding air from the mine workings caused "a deluge of tiles" to fall from the walls onto the choir. One day the Rev. Horwood was in the church and there was a noise "like the rushing of a mighty wind" and he was a column of water rising at the end of the church to a height of fifteen feet. Due to the mining subsidence the church underwent restoration or remedial work in 1890, 1894, 1905 and 1915 and again in 1947-8 as a result of the bombing.
By
1960 most of the walls were out of the perpendicular and had been
secured by iron ties. Two of the stone arches of the nave were supported
on wooden strutting. Later the church was demolished because of its poor
condition.
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photos and maps of St. Matthew's
Church
questions/comments/contributions? email: Steve Birks