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The church of St. Matthew,
Etruria was founded in September 1847, 40 years after the building of
the Etruria pottery works and village by Josiah Wedgwood.
Originally in the parish of
St. Mark, Shelton - the new parish of Etruria was created in 1844.
The
Boatmen's Chapel:
Early in 1844 the Rev. Henry Wynter came to Etruria village and
stated that he intended to stay, when it was pointed out that there was
no Church of England in the village he announced that he would make one.
He hired temporary premises in a large club room over the stable of the
Etruria Inn.
After a short time he purchased the ground halfway between the canal
bridge and the first lock, towards Shelton, and on this, by June 1844,
had built the "Boatmen's Chapel" - this chapel was closed after the
opening of St. Matthew's and on its site was built the Navigation Inn.
St. Matthew's Etruria :
In 1845 the Bishop instructed that the schoolroom then being built
should be used for services as soon as it was completed in place of the
'boatsmen's chapel'
The church was consecrated on Sunday September 21st 1847 - St.
Matthew's Day. It was built from light sandstone brought by canal
barge from Cauldon Lowe. The land it was built on formerly contained the
cottage of John Bourne.
The Church of St. Matthew
taken 1948 by E.J.D. Warrillow
The church was designed by Henry Ward and
Son of Hanley.
 on
Henry Ward
It is Early English style and
contained 727 sittings, 500 of these were free. The church cost £2,500
to erect and the living was £150 per annum. The tower contained one
bell.
St. Mathew's consisted of nave, aisles,
chancel and north-west turret. There were originally galleries on three
sides.
Vicars
of St. Matthew's:
| Rev. Henry
Wynter |
October 1847 to July
1856 |
| Rev. C. J.
Sterling |
August 1856 to November
1964 |
| Rev. Robert
Topham |
December 1864 to September
1889 |
| Rev. Willis
Barrett |
May 1990 to August 1913 |
| Rev. Thomas
Horwood |
February 1914 to
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Firsts:
 The
first burial took place before the church had been officially opened -
that of Anne Price, aged 22 on May 25th 1847.
The
first christening took place on October 3rd 1847 - it was John Collier
Slack, son of William Henry and Slack of Mill Street, Etruria.
First
triplets - on February 13th 1848 the triplets of John and Mary Cooke -
Mary Caroline, John and Eliza - were christened.
First
wedding took place at the church on June 25th 1849 between Samuel
Beckett and Hannah Eastwood.
Other interesting facts:
The first vicar, Rev Wynter, was the
Chaplain to the nearby "House of Recovery" - the first North
Staffordshire Royal Infirmary.
The vicar Rev. Topham had two curates - the Rev. J. W. Evans
and the Rev. W. L. M. Law. The latter stayed in Etruria until 1907, when
he left to take charge of a church in Pisa (of leaning tower fame), part
of the ancient Etruria in Italy.
It was in the Rev. Topham's time that a child, Andrew Hollins, aged six,
was overcome by fumes and burnt to death on a slag heap belonging to the
nearby Shelton Company. He was buried in the churchyard on October 19th
1865.
The last person buried in the Churchyard was "Old Betsy Billington", she
was buried by the Rev. Willis Barrett on January 16th 1908. She was the
caretaker of the church and a mistress at the church school until it
closed in 1902.
There were a total of 973 burials at the churchyard.
In September 1940 and January 1941 bombers,
seeking to bomb the Shelton Works, dropped high explosive bombs in the
churchyard, adding to the havoc caused by the subsidence. When the
church reached its centenary in 1947 there were no celebrations but the
church was thoroughly renovated - the re-opening ceremony was held on
September 16th 1948 and celebrations were held in September 1948 and
1949.
Subsidence:
Nine feet of he short tower was removed in 1935, as it was found to be
15 inches out of the perpendicular, due to the extraordinary subsidence
in Etruria.
on the subsidence in
Etruria
Subsidence, due to mining, has been a problem in Etruria. By the early
1950's there was a drop of two feet ten inches from west to east in the
church and and eighteen inch drop from north to south. In 1938 the
escape of expanding air from the mine workings caused "a deluge of
tiles" to fall from the walls onto the choir. One day the Rev. Horwood
was in the church and there was a noise "like the rushing of a mighty
wind" and he was a column of water rising at the end of the church to a
height of fifteen feet.
Due
to the mining subsidence the church underwent restoration or remedial
work in 1890, 1894, 1905 and 1915 and again in 1947-8 as a result of the
bombing.
By
1960 most of the walls were out of the perpendicular and had been
secured by iron ties. Two of the stone arches of the nave were supported
on wooden strutting. Later the church was demolished because of its poor
condition.
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