Next year, 1617, William Adams of Burslem describes himself in his Will as “potter”; and among the depositions of witnesses in the Chancery suit of “Mainwaring _v._ Shaw” of 1640, one of the witnesses, Ralph Simpson of Burslem, aged 80, is described as “potter.” Thereafter every reference to Burslem or Tunstall is replete with “potters” or “earth-potters,” and men trained to the trade were acquiring the skill necessary for the localization of the coming industry. The men were ready. The clay and coal are found together cropping out in the country of the Staffordshire Potteries. The clay, though not now used for earthenware, is, and always has been, suitable for the saggars in which the ware is packed while being fired, and for the fire-bricks of the kiln in which the ware is baked. The coals were so cheap that, in 1680, they cost apparently only 16d. a ton at the pit’s mouth, and although such coal had to be carried usually on horseback, yet it never had to be carried more than two miles to reach the pot ovens. One other raw material was wanted—lead. It was the most expensive, almost the only part of the master potter’s equipment that required capital. The ore was got at Lawton Park, six miles to the north. The capital stock-in-trade of the early potter is shown by the Will of John Colclough _alias_ Rowley, of Burslem, who died in 1656, leaving “to Thomas Wedgwood of the Churchyard of Burslem ... all my pottinge boards and all other necessary implements and materialls belonginge to the trade of pottinge (lead and lead orre onely excepted).” This same Thomas Wedgwood was great-grandfather of Josiah Wedgwood, and he, as well as two of his brothers, Aaron and Moses, also describe themselves in their Wills as “Potters.” Burslem was by 1670 full of potters; making no doubt butter-pots or the commonest of ware.[3] A little further off, in the valley of Tinkersclough, Thomas Toft was actually attempting decoration. The Toft dishes are well known. They are signed with the name, Thomas Toft or Ralph Toft, written in liquid slip clay upon the plate. They are made of red, buff or yellow clay, and other coloured slip-clays are dribbled over them through a quill, so as to make pictures of Charles II, or Queen Anne, or a pelican picking its breast to feed its young. Then the whole is dusted over with powdered lead ore, and fired till the lead fuses into the plate and forms a rich yellowish glaze.