Some of these productions, of what has come to be called the Toft school, are dated. There is a candlestick, very elaborate, dated 1649, and claimed for Staffordshire. Shaw mentions two dishes marked, one “Thos. Sans,” and the other “Thos. Toft,” each dated 1650.[4] M. Solon had seen a slip dish, in a cottage in Hanley, bearing this inscription scratched on its back, “Thomas Toft, Tinkers Clough, I made it 166-.”[5] A dish with the picture of a soldier bearing a sword in each hand, and inscribed in slip “Ralph Toft, 1677” is also mentioned by M. Solon.[6] Another, marked Ralph Toft, and bearing the image of a very wasp-waisted lady is in the Salford Museum, dated “1676.”[7] Other makers of this school were Thomas and William Sans, Ralph Simson and William Taylor. They made two-handled drinking mugs called “tygs” with similar decoration; and small model cradles made in clay and slip—presents for young married couples, according to their local custom. Puzzle Jugs were another “freak” production, speaking the humour of the time. The jug was so contrived with multiple spouts and hidden passages as to spill however one tried to drink from it. A sample of these puzzle jugs in stoneware bears the inscription “John Wedgwood 1691.”[8] This man was the eldest son of the Thomas Wedgwood previously mentioned, and did not pot himself. I think this jug was made for him by his nephew, Richard Wedgwood, to whom he both leased the Overhouse Works and married his daughter and heiress. Several pieces are marked with the name “Joseph Glass,” who is known to have been a potter in Hanley in 1710-15. All these early master potters were handy men of many trades. They made their pots in sheds at the “backsides” of their dwelling houses, alongside the cow-shed. They dug their own clay, often in front of their own front doors. The Wedgwoods at least owned and dug their own coal, wherewith to fire the oven. It was a peasant industry, carried on by the family, among the pigs and fowls; and when they were not making show pieces for presentation they made butter-pots, in which farmers might market their butter at Uttoxeter—at least so says Dr Plot. CHAPTER II. A PEASANT INDUSTRY. Dr Plot seems to have visited the Potteries in 1677. In 1686 he published his “Natural History of Staffordshire.” Although he obviously takes the most lively interest in the dances of witches, and that strange chemical process called “striking with galls,” yet he was also a keen observer, and found time to set down the earliest account—and at the same time an intelligent account—of the North Staffordshire potting industry. A contemporary account of this early date must obviously be of the greatest importance, and it is here given in full.