Longton, Staffordshire

Longton is one of the six towns which amalgamated to form the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910, along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Burslem and Stoke-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, England. ^[1]

Longton
Federated Town and District
Top: Longton Gladstone Pottery Museum Upper: Railway Bridge with the Crown Hotel and the Strand Lower: St James' Church and Old Town Hall Bottom: Market Hall and the Roslyn Works
Longton Location within the United Kingdom
Population	27,214
OS grid reference	SJ911433
Unitary authority	Stoke-on-Trent
Ceremonial county	Staffordshire
Region	West Midlands
Districts of the town	List Adderley Green Blurton (Part) Dresden Florence Lightwood Meir Meir Heath Normacot Weston Coyney
Post town	STOKE-ON-TRENT
Postcode district	ST3
Dialling code	01782
Police
Fire
Ambulance
UK Parliament	Stoke-on-Trent South
List of places United Kingdom 52°59′16″N 2°07′58″W / 52.9877°N 2.1327°W / 52.9877; -2.1327

History

Longton ('long village') was a market town in the parish of Stoke in the county of Staffordshire. The town still has a market housed in an attractively renovated market hall. Longton is an ancient village with hundreds of years of history. It was a long, strangling township (hence its name) for centuries until its population doubled in the space of a decade, the 1960s.^[2]

Coal miners in the Hanley and Longton area ignited the 1842 general strike and associated Pottery Riots.^[3] The summer of 1842 was a time of riot across the north and midlands of England, including north Staffordshire. The riot impacts employees strike in pottery factories, which were dependent on coal to fire their wares, and many pottery workers had their hours of work reduced, leading to great hardship. On 14 and 15 August 1842 the prominent radical writer and poet, Thomas Cooper, spoke at a number of open-air meetings in Stoke-on-Trent in support of the local colliers entry. Following his speech on 15 August, a number of men marched through Hanley, Shelton, Stoke, Penkhull, Fenton and Longton destroying property and encouraging others to join them. The riots continued through the night and the following morning a large crowd assembled in Burslem.^[4]

In March 1865, Longton and Lane End were incorporated as the Borough of Longton. On 1 April 1910, the town was federated into the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. Longton and Lane-End are two townships, or liberties, forming one flourishing market town now commonly called Longton, and situated at the southern extremity of the Potteries, five miles South East of Newcastle .^[5]

Arnold Bennett referred to Longton as Longshaw, one of the "five towns" featured in his novels set in the Staffordshire Potteries.

 

Aynsley Pottery

Industry

The district has a long history as a base for the pottery industry, such as Paragon China and Aynsley, and several major manufacturers still have a presence, along with Gladstone Pottery Museum. Roslyn Works, which adjoins the latter, is now home to several small-scale manufacturers of ceramics.

Florence colliery, which opened in the 19th century, was one of the pits of the North Staffordshire Coalfield. It was connected underground to another pit at Hem Heath. It was closed in the 1990s.

Belstaff Clothing brand

Belstaff of Longton is a garment manufacturer best known for producing high-performance waterproof jackets.

Founded in Longton in 1924 by Eli Belovitch and his son in law Harry Grosberg. Belstaff produced all-weather jackets for motorcyclists, and was the first company to use waxed cotton.

Landmarks

Public buildings

Longton Town Hall, which was completed in 1844 and was the local seat of government until 1910, was being stripped out by contractors when it was saved from demolition in 1986.^[6]

Industrial buildings

 

Bottle oven at Minkstone Works, Longton

There are fewer than 50 surviving bottle ovens in the city of Stoke-on-Trent (and only a scattering elsewhere in the UK). The kilns of the Gladstone Pottery Museum, along with others in the Longton conservation area represent a significant proportion of the national stock of the structures.^[7] The bottle ovens of Longton have been promoted as a tourist attraction.^[8] In the 21st century, the condition of some of the bottle ovens has given cause for concern. A Stoke-on-Trent Ceramic Heritage Action Zone was created with the double function of regenerating Longton and surviving bottle ovens throughout the city.^[9][10]

Transport

In 1997 Longton's one-way system was bypassed when a new section of the A50 was opened. It runs from Blythe Bridge to Queensway (a section of the A500), going through Longton in a cutting.

 

The A50 near to its cutting. The prominent building is the Sutherland Institute, Longton's library.^[11]

Longton is served by a railway station on the Crewe–Derby line. It was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on 7 August 1848. A new bus interchange was opened adjacent to it in 2003 on the site of a former Co-op supermarket.

 

The girder bridge adjacent to Longton railway station

Education

Secondary schools in the area include St Thomas More Catholic Academy and Stoke Studio College.

Together with Rochdale, then in Lancashire, Longton was host to the first Workers' Educational Association tutorial classes. R. H. Tawney, known as "the patron saint of adult education",^[12] taught the classes for three years starting in January 1908.

Retail

A new shopping precinct, the Bennett Precinct, opened in 1962.^[13] It is now named Longton Exchange.

In 2003 a Tesco Extra hypermarket was built (there are other Tesco stores at Meir). Since then, other major retailers such as Argos, Next, Pizza Hut, Matalan, Wilko and B & M have opened new premises.

Building firm St. Modwen's opened an £8 million retail complex in April 2012. The stores there include McDonald's, Pets at Home, Smyths and Currys.

Other local businesses like Hylands and Bevans have also thrived in the area.

Nightlife

Jollees Cabaret Club was a very popular nightspot in the 1970s, attracting some of the biggest names in entertainment. In the early 1990s, Shelley's Laserdome became widely known throughout the Midlands as a rave venue, but it was forced to close in 1992.

Notable people

• Sir John Edensor Heathcote (c.1757–1822) Stoke-on-Trent industrialist, owner of Longton Hall, which he rebuilt in 1778.
• John Aynsley (1823–1907) English potter who established the Portland Works in Longton
• Percy Shelley (1860-1937) was a major force in developing Shelley Potteries, born in Longton.
• Frederick Arthur Challinor (1866–1952), was a British composer.
• Ernest Albert Egerton VC (1897–1966) English recipient of the Victoria Cross
• William Thomas Astbury FRS (1898–1961) English physicist and molecular biologist who made pioneering X-ray diffraction studies of biological molecules.
• Gordon Mons Higginson (1918-1993) British purported spiritualist medium.
• Charles Tomlinson (1927–2015) English poet, attended Longton High School
• Freddie Jones (1927–2019) actor; his many roles on film and television included Sandy Thomas in Emmerdale.
• Andrew Evans (born 1950s) a soldier from Longton, stationed at Whittington Barracks, was wrongfully convicted and served 25 years in custody after confessing to the 1972 murder of Judith Roberts, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Tamworth.

Sport

• William (Billy) Weston (1847-1935) Australasian billiards player, emigrated from Longton aged 3.
• George Arthur Gallimore (1886–1949) English professional footballer who made 77 appearances for Stoke City F.C.
• Henry "Harry" Colclough (1888–1955) English international footballer, who made 83 appearances for Crystal Palace F.C.
• William Wootton (1904–2000) English footballer, made 56 appearances for Port Vale F.C.
• Norman Henry Hallam (1920–1997) was an English footballer, made 63 appearances for Port Vale F.C.
• Philip Adrian "Phil" Heath (born 1964) former professional English footballer, made 297 appearances.

Trivia

• Longton is the birthplace and home of Alan Povey's character Owd Grandad Piggott
• Black Country folk singer/songwriter, Neil Morris, now lives near Longton

Gallery

•  
  Sutherland Institute, Longton. Completed in 1898 on land donated by the Duke of Sutherland who lived at nearby Trentham Hall.
•  
  The work of potters is depicted in the terracotta frieze above the entrance to the Sutherland Institute.^[11]
•  
  Gladstone Pottery Museum
•  
  Longton Park
•  
  St James' Church, Longton

References

1. Web Editorial Team, British History Online. "The Federation Of The Six Towns". BHO. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
2. Searson, M. (1988) Longton a Village History, Lancaster: Carnegie Press, p.2-3.
3. Web Editorial Team, Genealogy Reviews. "Stoke-on-Trent". Genealogy Reviews. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
4. Web Journalism Team, Stoke Museum (19 September 2019). "The Pottery riots in Burslem, August 1842". Stoke Museum. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
5. Web Journalism Team, Stoke Museum. "Land End". The Potteries. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
6. "From Sentinel legend John Abberley's archive we look at Longton's Town Hall". Stoke Sentinel. 30 October 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
7. "Longton Conservation Area" (PDF). 2009. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
8. "Heritage Open Days event – Walking to Bottle Ovens in Longton".
9. "Stoke-on-Trent Ceramic Heritage Zone". Historic England.
10. Corrigan, Phil (October 2020). "£800,000 scheme to 'transform' historic town centre buildings". Sentinel. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
11. "Listed buildings in Stoke-on-Trent".
12. Elsey, B. (1987) 'R. H. Tawney – Patron saint of adult education', in P. Jarvis (ed.) "Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult Education", Beckenham: Croom Helm
13. Abberley, John (2003). The Way We Were in the 1960s: Memories of Staffordshire in Photographs. Altrincham: Hochland Communications Ltd. ISBN 1-904038-07-7.

External links

• (listings of local amenities and regeneration projects)
• Longton – Stoke-on-Trent
• Longton
• Use interactive maps to find historic photographs and artefacts of old Longton
• at The Sentinel (local newspaper)
• Longton South Community Blog (local blog)
• www.hylands.tv