Stoke-on-Trent is a city in Staffordshire in an area known as the Potteries due to the regions close association with ceramic manufacture and is the home of World famous designs such as Wedgewood, Spode, Minton, Moorcroft and Royal Daulton. The region has a population close to 500,000 and boasts a well-established Premier League football club, City with a proud history including the best years of the Legend, Sir Stanley Matthews. The City developed in the Canal era and most schoolchildren will vaguely know that china clay was transported by that means from Cornwall.
The tradition of being a hotbed of captains of industry established by Josiah Wedgewood continues to this day with the likes of Jon Moulton, John Madejski and John Caudwell being from the area. If thinking of names your son for prosperity, there seems to be only one choice in Stoke.
Not a one trick dray horse exactly, Stoke also prospered in the past from both Coal and Steel production, but they have both declined while the ceramics stay to provide identity. The design eye of the locals is well reflected in being host to a Flower Festival in 1986 and today at the many creative academic courses available from the University of Staffordshire.
Aside from the football, Stoke entertained us in recent years in the Arenas and at the oche; two of her famous sons being Robbie Williams and Phil “the power” Taylor.
As if to call back the ancient glitter of her history, in 2010 an amateur detectorist unearthed the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of gold treasure to be found from Anglo Saxon settlement.