A development, however, that helped the union at first more than anything else, was the invention of pot-making machines. The potting industry had survived so long without machinery, that the workmen had begun to think themselves safe. These flat and hollow ware-pressers had skill, and they were paid by the piece. At one fell swoop, and in the middle of their settled lives, they saw themselves suddenly deprived of all the value of their skill and training, and likely to be replaced by women and lads. During 1845-6 Mr Ridgway tried a “paste-box” machine, and Chas. J. Mason bought some sort of a plate “jolly.”[186] The men promptly struck and prevented their adoption, but the panic was intensified when Messrs Copeland introduced a similar dread machine, which the potters in their terror called the “Scourge.” This machine too was withdrawn, but not because of the union. The general election of 1847 was approaching and Alderman Copeland stood for Stoke-on-Trent. It is curious to think that the panic fear of the workers postponed the introduction of these machines for twenty years. And indeed the pottery workers themselves have lost something through the introduction of machinery. The proportion of women and young persons employed in the industry is double what it was in 1850, and the work of married women is not good for the rest of the people. Incidentally this machinery panic broke down the union. Encouraged by William Evans, their leader and the editor of the “Examiner,” the union attempted to emigrate the unemployed—almost to emigrate _en masse_ and fly from the wrath to come. They bought a great estate in Wisconsin, called it Pottersville, and to it in 1846 they sent out settlers as to a new Utopia. The scheme failed, and with it, in 1849, collapsed the third potters’ union. Drained of money for America, it had been growing weaker ever since 1847—they could only humbly petition against Copeland’s “Scourge,” and as the union weakened “allowances” crept back into use, while “good-from-oven” and the annual hiring flourished as before.[187] It is said that but for the opposition of the Newcastle innkeepers the main line of the London and Manchester Railway would have run up the Trent valley, and Newcastle would now occupy the position of Crewe as a universal junction. However that may be, in 1846 a company was formed for giving the potteries direct railway communication with the main trunk lines. The moving spirit in this enterprise was Alderman Copeland, M.P. for Stoke, and senior partner in Messrs Copeland and Garrett—the pottery firm that had once been Spode’s. [Illustration: ALD. W. T. COPELAND, M.P. 1797-1868]