Longton, Staffordshire

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, straggling township (hence its name) for centuries until its population doubled in the space of a decade, the 1960s. Coal miners in the Hanley and Longton area ignited the 1842 general strike and associated Pottery Riots. 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…